BOOTHBAY, ME.- Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (CMBG) recently installed a solo exhibition of artist Steve Tobin's Steelroots and bronze Walking Roots sculptures throughout the grounds as part of the Park’s "Roots: The Other Half of the Story" thematic show. Titled "Steve Tobin: Unearthed" the sculptures will be on view through spring of 2020. Tobin gave an artist lecture and signed copies of his recently published monograph, "Mind Over Matter" (Rizzoli International) on August 20, 2019.

Tobin, often called a "visual philosopher" by art critics, has long explored the natural world in glass, clay, bronze, and steel. His oeuvre ranges from bronze castings of trees’ vast root systems to towering termite mounds cast on-site in West Africa, to waterfalls and rivers that spring from ceilings and snake rock formations made of millions of glass capillary tubes or slender steel rods. His stunning, massive root sculptures invite structure and space to work together, making the unseen seen.

"Roots are a metaphor for strength, resourcefulness, and determination,” said Tobin. "The object itself is just a window into an idea. In the curvilinear geometry of the Steelroots series, for example, the space between the solid material is the content -- just as in speaking, the spaces between the words are so often where the content lies. The literal aspect is just the vehicle."

Tobin's massive, engaging sculptures have been exhibited throughout the world, from the caves in Nutijarva, Finland to the biennale in Shanghai, China, to the grounds of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the Page Museum/La Brea Tar Pits/ LACMA complex in Los Angeles.

The CMBG was founded in 1991 by a group of mid-Coast residents who dreamed of building a world class public garden on 148 acres of rocky coastal forest in Boothbay, and officially opened in summer of 2007. Its mission is to inspire meaningful connections among people, plants and nature, through horticulture, education, and research.