The Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County (CAA) and South Walton Artificial Reef Association (SWARA) are proud to reveal the five sculpture designs chosen by jury for permanent exhibition in the seventh installation of the Underwater Museum of Art (UMA).
The 2025 installation will include the following sculptures: Seahorse by Jessica Bradsher (Greenville, NC), Concretion by William Braithwaite (United Kingdom), The Neptunian Oak by Nathan Hoffman (Highlandville, MO), Happy Hour by Sarah Wilkinson (United Kingdom), and Hometown by Mandy Yourk (Panama City, FL).
Named in 2018 by TIME Magazine as one of 100 “World’s Greatest Places,” and recipient of the 2023 CODAAward for Collaboration of the Year, the UMA is the cornerstone of the CAA’s Art In Public Spaces Program and augments SWARA’s mission of creating marine habitat and expanding fishery populations while providing enhanced creative, cultural, economic and educational opportunities for the benefit, education and enjoyment of residents, students and visitors in South Walton.
UMA sculptures are deployed with SWARA’s existing USACOA and FDEP permitted artificial reef projects that includes nine nearshore reefs located within one nautical mile of the shore in approximately 58 feet of water. The 2025 installation will join the 47 sculptures previously deployed on a one-acre permit patch of seabed off Grayton Beach State Park, further expanding the nation’s first permanent underwater museum.
Deployment of the 2025 UMA sculptures is slated for Summer. Visit UMAFL.org for more information on timeline and events surrounding the installation. Project and sculpture sponsorships are available. Please contact Gabby Callaway at gabby@culturalartsalliance.com for details.
2025 UMA SCULPTURE AND ARTIST DETAILS
SEAHORSE artist Jessica Bradsher is based in Greenville, NC. As an outdoor sculpture artist, she often creates with the themes of horses and hair. Seahorse will be her 9th full size welded horse and the piece will incorporate a fun twist on its mane and tail as they appear to flow with the ocean waters. Surreal horses inspire the imagination and the idea that anything is possible if you can dream it into existence.
CONCRETION is a concrete and steel sculpture by artist William Braithwaite. Concretion will add an interesting architectural intervention in the Gulf, asking a question about the relationship of art, architecture and the natural world. Using repetitive shapes and forms Braithwaite will build a large form that has both geometric and linear values. The sculpture describes visual relationships; it is a way for the artist to make sense of architecture and its aesthetic values and provide a way of trying to understand abstract relationships.
Readers may recognize Missouri-based artist Nathan Hoffman from his 2024 UMA sculpture
Poseidon’s Throne. For the 2025 installation, Hoffman will create THE NEPTUNIAN OAK, a conduit for life and movement although being a representation of a dead and lifeless tree at its first landing on the ocean floor. It’s dislocated from its usual environment, however it will still function with great purpose. Even in death, a tree is a vessel for life. The hollowed out trunk and limbs will invite life to inhabit and explore its many crevices and grooves, swimming into and out of the voluminous space. Sections of big thick, chunky bark will provide surface area and many attachment points for life to flourish. A large tree commands your attention and deserves respect from the many years it’s lived and hardships it’s endured. This tree will be a reminder of the cycle of life and death and rebirth as new growth overtakes its once colorless and lifeless form. The submerged tree is also a reminder of rising sea levels and the rapidly changing earth. As living trees create oxygen through photosynthesis, in death this tree will do the same by giving algae a place to grow. If we could all be more like trees.
HAPPY HOUR by UK based artist Sarah Wilkinson is based on a margarita cocktail glass and provides the visiting divers with time to enjoy an oversized cocktail while diving the underwater museum site. The main purpose of the sculpture is to encourage marine life to transform the sculpture into a living reef. All surfaces of the concrete glass, together with the lime pieces attached to the cocktail glass, will have crevices and texture to attract marine life and algae to take up home on the sculpture. It is hoped that a cocktail of marine life will eventually inhabit the cocktail glass.
HOMETOWN by Panama City artist Mandy Yourick uses simple shapes to explore the multiple meanings of home. The inspiration for this sculpture is the site itself. The Gulf waters, specifically off the shore of Grayton Beach, which are home to Yourick. This is where she first learned to swim in open water and where she spent many years making memories with friends on the shore. As the sixth generation of her family to be born and raised in the Florida Panhandle, she has deep connections to the area and is committed to the longevity of its biodiversity. Yourick hopes this playful sculpture becomes a hometown for generations of marine life to come.