themes in my work is the reconciliation of the organic and the industrial. I see my work as forming a kind of bridge between what we experience in nature and what we experience from the urban, industrial, technology-driven society we live in. I like to think that within the work that I approach most successfully there is a resolution of the tension between the sense of freedom one has in contemplating nature and the sometimes restrictive, closed feeling engendered by the rigors of the city, the rigors of the industrial environment. I must, I can, I will provide the physical evidence of me and my family having lived upon this earth, this planet. In the great scheme of things it is less than a drop in the bucket but it pleases me to be able to leave this evidence here for a time. Imagining a world without racial hierarchy, I work as if race did not exist.Sculpture is not a self-declaration but a voice of and for my people. Over all a rich fabric; under all about the dynamism of the African American people.I have always been interested in the concept of freedom on the personal and universal levels: political freedom, freedom to think and to feel. As an African American living in the United States, obviously issues like segregation laws, the civil rights movement in the 1960s or South Africa have been on my mind when I have dealt with the concept of freedom. But freedom also relates to my career as an artist: freedom of mind, thought and imagination. My own use of winged forms in the early ’50s is based on mythological themes, like Icarus and Winged Victory. It’s about, on the one hand, trying to achieve victory or freedom internally. It’s also about investigating ideas of personal and collective freedom. My use of these forms has roots and resonances in the African-American experience and is also a universal symbol. Selected awards 1956 Mr and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Medal and Prize, Art Institute of Chicago 1957 James Nelson Raymond Traveling Fellowship, School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1957 Pauline Palmer Prize, Art Institute of Chicago 1961 Mr and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Medal and Prize, Art Institute of Chicago 1962 Mr and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Medal and Prize, Art Institute of Chicago 1962 Walter M. Campana Prize, Art Institute of Chicago 1962-63 John Simon