Sean Kenney is a 43 year old lego sculptor based in New York and is a LEGO Certified Professional. According to the official LEGO website, being a certified professional entails that they are officially recognized by the LEGO Group as trusted business partners and are hobbyists who have turned their passion for building and creating with LEGO bricks into a full-time or part-time profession. Sean Kenney is a self taught artist and has mastered his craft by continuously building sculptures since his youth. He first began building LEGO art at the age of four, and has since made his art to be his full time job for 15 years and counting. Kenney is famous for creating both life sized and gigantic-scaled models of outdoor animals and critters. He has had multiple award-winning exhibition, such as Wild Connections, Nature Connects, and his most recent one titled Nature Pop. These exhibits that he creates is not stagnant, but makes stops around the world for many people to enjoy. Not only does he focus his art on wild life LEGO sculptures, he also does commission work on his website in which costumers can commission a one dimensional portrait of themselves made entirely out of LEGO pieces. These portraits vary in prices based on the size you want (small:$650 medium:$950 large: $1695). 

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Sean Kenney perfectly embodies the theme of our exhibit in the sense that he views his lego creations as a creative art form and even claims to be a "Professional Kid."Kenney begins every project by simply sitting at a table with a picture or two of whatever he is building, a set of LEGOs, and sees where his imagination takes him. All of his LEGO sculptures are built the traditional way in which each block is connected in the way it is supposed to be. He just uses glue to keep his creations intact as it is moved for shipment and placed into his exhibit. Although he is recognized as a LEGO Certified Professional by the company, he still has to purchase the LEGO blocks from the company. He does have the benefit of being able to contact LEGO directly and order supplies in bulk, rather than having to buy LEGOs from the toy store. With the help from the LEGO company, Kenney is able to make connections with other companies and businesses to make commissioned art projects. He has made art for multiple magazine covers, Zoos, public spaces, and many more. He is a published author for 9 children books about the art of LEGO building and his own work.

   

 In regards to Kenney's touring exhibit, Nature connects, the sculptures in this exhibits explore topics such as animal endangerment, the balance of ecosystems, and mankind’s relationship with nature. The Nature Pop exhibit is a very vibrant and colorful exhibit that depicts nature in a new and playful way. The Wild Connection exhibit expresses important ecological topics such as sustainability, endangered habitat protection, and urban development. In The Nature Pop exhibit, he creates LEGO sculptures of animals using bright hues all over the color spectrum. Each of these exhibits were built with over 3 million LEGO blocks and have been touring the US, Europe, and Asia. He creates each piece with the intent of having his audience marvel at the gigantic models that seem to be very intricate and precise. Kenney wants his audience to reflect on the complex building technique and how each block it utilized to create the overall piece.

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Sean Kenney's LEGO sculpture,"Monarch on milkweed" and "Hummingbird and trumpet flower" are both part of his Nature Connects exhibit. Both of these sculptures embody the vision of our art gallery because it depicts a small creature and enlarges its via the medium of LEGO bricks. These models show how LEGO pieces can be used to create things out of the ordinary, such as huge hummingbirds and butterflies. "Color-mixing family of deer" sculpture shows the variety of colors that come along with the art of LEGO building. It also shows the limitless creativity that these little blocks provide for the artist. Lastly, "Baby pandas playing," "Shirtless green boy," and "Family Portrait" depict how intricate and precise LEGO art is. It shows how pieces can automatically fit together to create a scene or image with much detail and depth.   

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