Green Wheels

“Colorful plastic debris, shiny metal scraps, rusty car parts, and burnt tree trunks. These broken objects embody tensions and conflicts between humanity and nature. My art practice explores the acts and remnants of human intrusions upon the earth. Working with found materials, I create artwork depicting visual aspects of climate change. I am an environmental artist exploring relationships between sustainability, technology, and social engagement.

Based in Detroit, I am currently working with used toy cars and electrical wires to comment on electric vehicles now under development by auto makers here. While this “clean” technology pollutes less than gas engines, it presents other environmental challenges. This includes mining of toxic rare-earth minerals for lithium-ion batteries, their hazardous disposal, and increased power plant pollution while expanding charging station networks.

Both a sculptor and an architect by training, my artworks comment on human transgressions of natural and constructed environments. 

My multi-disciplinary installations probe the intersections between sculpture, architecture, installation, and land art to comment on humanity’s complicated relationship with nature.

About the Juror

Jeff Schofield is trained both as an architect and a sculptor. He holds an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and an M Arch from Columbia University in the City of New York. An American citizen, Schofield was raised in Brussels, Belgium, and later worked in Paris and Dubai as a sustainable architect. He settled in Detroit eight years ago to pursue a career as a visual artist focused on environmental themes.

Schofield has exhibited internationally at art fairs and galleries, including group shows in Brussels, Rome, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi. 

He has exhibited at Cranbrook Art Museum, Muskegon Art Museum, The Dow Museum of Science and Art, the Idaherma Museum of Art, the Alexandria Museum of Art, the Springfield Museum of Art, The Sculpture Center in Cleveland, and other venues.

His solo shows include Hatch Art Gallery in Detroit Talking Dolls Gallery also in Detroit, KINK Contemporary Gallery in Cleveland, Bread and Circus Gallery in Fort Wayne, Artlink Gallery also in Fort Wayne, Roy G Biv Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, and the United States Embassy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. 

Schofield has been awarded funded artist residencies at Franconia Sculpture Park, Jentel Arts, Wurlitzer Foundation, Monson Arts, Prairie Ronde, Art Farm Nebraska, Yellow Bird Art Farm, Spruill Farm Conservation Project, and others. His artworks have earned numerous awards, including an International Emerging Artists Award, an Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts Fellowship, a Merit Scholarship at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a Merit Scholarship at Ox-Bow School of Art.