Sam Ekwurtzel

Sam Ekwurtzel was born in 1983 in Hartford and lives and works in New York. 

Sam Ekwurtzel works with stone, wood, glass, molten metals, and more ephemeral materials such as sound and air. His practice explores industrial techniques such as extrusion, which he applies to everyday objects before transforming them into sculptural works. By reworking elements of urban infrastructure, Ekwurtzel examines how public structures shape our movements and raises question about the role of art in shared spaces. 

At Atelier Calder, Ekwurtzel continued his exploration of unconventional sculptural processes. He worked with barriers, security posts, mahoe covers, and road signs—objects designed to control movement, define spaces, and organize circulation. He coated these objects in a thick layer of ceramic, a material commonly used in industrial mold-making, before firing them at high temperatures. The metal melted inside the ceramics and flowed onto the ground, creating abstract forms reduced to pools of molten material.