From wood to monumental bronze, Thaddeus Mosley’s vision comes alive in Touching the Earth.

At 99 years old, Thaddeus Mosley is still carving. Not only wood, but also his legacy. Rooted in the rhythms of jazz, the reverence of African diasporic traditions, and deep listening, he shapes timeless forms from fallen natural materials.

This idea of nature and legacy is on full display in Touching the Earth, Mosley’s first outdoor solo exhibition in New York City, presented by Public Art Fund and Karma Gallery. The City Hall Park outdoor space is populated by eight unique bronze sculptures, all originally carved from wood between 1996 and 2021. The works were cast and reimagined in metal through yet another deeply rooted relationship, but this time with UAP’s Rock Tavern Foundry.

This partnership began in 2020, when Mosley first entered the world of bronze casting with UAP.

With each new sculpture comes a unique challenge of capturing that touch meant to honor every grain, every chisel mark, every curve of the wood. For his smaller works, with rubber, wax, and deep respect for the original artwork, our mould-making team worked meticulously to capture Thaddeus Mosley’s wooden sculptures keeping true to his forms at the 1:1 scale. Rubber moulds were refined through careful testing, ensuring the originals remained unaltered. Then our expert wax team—Raul, Loyal, and Aristoteles, with over 100 years of combined experience—translated each form to a near perfect wax replica with precision and care. Moulds were poured, waxes refined, and casting began.

For the largest sculpture, Gate III, standing 15 feet tall and weighing over 4,600 pounds in bronze, UAP collaborated with the studio and gallery to produce Mosley’s first ever enlargement. Using a no-contact 3D scan, the original wood sculpture, standing just 7ft tall, was digitally translated in-house at UAP under the very same roof where the work would eventually be milled into a full-scale foam form, sand molded, and cast in bronze. Cast in enormous sections, some castings well over 1,000lbs, , a testament to the long history of what once was Polich Tallix, now UAP, touting a pour capacity that pushes well beyond the limit of most foundries. These large castings mean fewer seams, and a more direct translation of the artists original, further celebrating the beautiful fine nuance across the every surface of even Mosley’s largest monumental work.

In the finishing stages, every groove mattered, especially when trying to mimic what Mosley does with wood. Our team worked hand-in-hand with the studio and gallery to translate each chisel mark, woodgrain, and tonal shift. Mimicking every element of the different artworks required a strong connection between artist and artisan, and that is what makes this work shine.

But it was in the patina where the true alchemy occurred.

The final result? A body of work that feels alive. In Benin Strut, Inverted Dancer, Southwestern Suite, Geometric Plateau, Repetitive Reference, Inclination, and Region in Suspension, you see Mosley’s intuitive response to form, now held in permanence through bronze. The works speak of movement, ancestry, and presence.

For UAP, it has been an honour to work with someone as talented and gifted as Thaddeus Mosley, in collaboration with Karma Gallery. This partnership reflects shared values: honouring the past, preserving handicrafts, and elevating the stories that shape our public spaces. Touching the Earth is more than just about the bronze. It’s about what it took to get there; it is the culmination of the artist’s lifelong conversation with wood and the artisans who helped that conversation continue.