Falon Mihalic

Windbloom

Windbloom is a supersized flower shading device that maps the site’s prevailing wind. As a pavilion-type sculpture, like an umbrella, Windbloom is meant to be experienced up close from underneath as a colorful shading device or from a distance as a supersized flower map. Inspired by the native ecology of the building site as an open coastal prairie, it creates a colorful map of the site’s prevailing winds with colorful “petals.” Constructed of painted carbon steel, polycarbonate resin panels, and customized attachments, all components of the sculpture are envisioned as “plant-like” with the structural supports taking on the form of plant tendrils and the plates modeled after a flower calyx (the plant part between flower petals and leaves).
Interdisciplinary artist Falon Mihalic invites the community to interact with the work both through firsthand experience of the piece and through the community engagement wind map diagrams housed in the public library. Windbloom gives form to the site’s ephemeral ecological qualities and fortifies the new Alief Community Center as a place for connection, reflection, and discovery.

Seagrass

Seagrass is inspired by the extraordinary ecology of underwater seagrasses growing in the shallow waters of Miami’s Biscayne Bay. The supersized sculptural forms are based on the endemic Johnson’s Seagrass (Halophila johnsonii), the smallest of Biscayne Bay’s seagrass species. Measuring at a height of only 2 inches in the wild, Johnson’s Seagrass helps purify the water and is a food source for many animals including manatees, urchins, and sea turtles. The sculptures are pigmented and polished terrazzo stone monoliths made from recycled glass, marine shells, and crushed limestone. Each sculpture is unique in its curvy form, color, and composition of glass and rocks. The curved face of each sculpture catches the sunlight at varying angles depending on the time of day and creates curving shadow lines on the surface.
Seagrass is sited within the landscape of the new Shenandoah Park Aquatic Facility, which features an Olympic sized swimming pool for the neighborhood of Shenandoah.

Rain

Rain is a wall art commission for the underground network of pedestrian tunnels in downtown Houston, Texas. Rain is an installation of a large scale painted water body with glistening rain drops. It’s created from layers of paint and pure pigment on a 20’ x 12’ wall. Acrylic sculptures welded from mirrored acrylic sheet create three dimensional prismatic water beads. The work was inspired by Houston’s dramatic rainstorms in the summer months. The work is made to be experienced from a variety of vantage points. The mirrored acrylic sculptures are multidimensional at different angles and seem to change shape when passing by. Viewed straight-on, the blue mirrors reflect back but with a blue overtone as if underwater.