About the artist:

Jesus Moroles was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, on September 22, 1950. He received his bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of North Texas, where he was honored in 1994 as a Distinguished Alumnus. Among his distinctions, Moroles is a member of the board of the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. He lives and works in Rockport, Texas. The Moroles Cultural Center in Cerrillos, New Mexico, serves as a multipurpose exhibition space for showcasing artist from other countries. Moroles has over two thousand works in place in China, Egypt, France, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, and the United States and in esteemed private, museum, corporate, and public collections including Dallas Museum of Art, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum of Contemporary Art (Osaka, Japan), Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Museum of Fine Arts (Santa Fe, New Mexico), National Museum of American Art Smithsonian Institute (Washington, D.C.), American Airlines (Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX), ATT (Dallas), City Group (NY, commissioned by E. F. Hutton), Credit Suisse (NY and Houston), American General Corporation (Houston), Texaco (Houston), Trammel Crow (Dallas), Viacom (NY, commissioned by CBS), the Woodlands Corporation (Woodlands, TX), China International City Sculpure (Beijing), City of Houston (Hermann Park), Houston Police Officers Memorial, and Xiadu Park (Yanquing, China), among others. Moroles' sculptures have been included in over three hundred museum and gallery exhibitions worldwide. Moroles works are made of granite, an extremely hard stone and a difficult medium composed of crystals fused together by heat and pressure. Diamond saw blades are required to cut granite; Moroles uses diamond bridge saws that have over three-foot-long blades. By breaking, tearing, slicing, sawing, grinding, and polishing, the artist reveals abstract forms hidden within the rock. In June 2015, Moroles's work Spirit Inner Columns was installed in the Hall Arts complex in Dallas. The work consists of four 15-foot, 10,000 pound granite columns. On June 15, 2015 Moroles was killed in a car accident on I-35 near Jarrell, TX. At the time of his death, he was leading a student internship program at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma, where he had been artist-in-residence and primary designer for the university's Coming Together Park. Moroles's studio in Rockport will work with USAO to finish the park, and the university is planning an event honoring Moroles for September 2015. "Creating granite sculptures for the Garden of the Spheres in Shenzhen is going to be one of my greatest challenges and inspirations. I will be shaping places for garden visitors to explore outer space while also contemplating the interior spaces of human nature." - Jesus Moroles