Erika Verzutti’s unique hybrid objects playfully fuse the real and the fantastical. Grounded in the everyday and deriving from ordinary objects, such as fruit, Verzutti’s ambiguous sculptures take on anthropomorphic qualities through her exploration of materials and embrace of chance and tactility.

The artist has described her work as “a sculpture of a painting,” and Verzutti’s most successful pieces result from her figuring out what works along the way in her studio.

For the AAM’s Crown Commons, Verzutti will create a large-scale bronze Venus—an extension of her recent smaller sculptures incorporating organic forms that depict the goddess of love, sex, beauty, and fertility.