Neil Hadlock is known for his monumental abstract sculpture. He was commissioned to create an outdoor sculpture for, what was at the time, the Delta Center, home of the Utah Jazz basketball team.

Hadlock chose to combine the concepts of rebuilding the west side of Salt Lake (represented by the two columns) and the athletic events to be hosted at the facility (represented by a section of the human torso draped in fabric). The selection of the materials, a polished cast stainless steel, contributes to a contemporary work with classical undertones.

For Hadlock, religion and art are inseparable: color, form, texture and structure communicate universal meaning and creating art is an act of worship. His creative abstraction is balanced by a pragmatism that often collides with the more romantic communal visions of the other artists.

Wesley Neil Hadlock was born in St. Anthony, Idaho in 1944. Hadlock is descended from two generations of blacksmiths whom he credits as influences. He received his formal education at Arizona State University, the University of Utah and Brigham Young University where, in 1971, he earned an MFA.

He is a founding member of the North Mountain Artists Co-operative and an abstract contemporary painter and sculptor. He also founded Wasatch Bronzeworks, a metal foundry in Lehi, Utah. Hadlock has exhibited his modernist sculpture throughout the West and is an art faculty member at B.Y.U.

biography courtesy Artists of Utah