Art on the Grounds: Curated by ÆRENA Galleries

Meet the Sculptors Behind Appellation Healdsburg

At Appellation Healdsburg, the property has always been more than a place to stay—it's a place to notice things. The way morning light moves across the courtyard. The texture of the landscape between the olive trees. The smell of something unexpected growing in the garden.

That quality of attentiveness is exactly what drew us to ÆRENA Galleries & Gardens. In a partnership rooted in a shared belief that place shapes experience, seven sculptures are now woven into the grounds of Appellation Healdsburg—each one positioned where it can do the most work, where a guest rounding a corner or pausing between the vines might encounter it unexpectedly. Some are monumental, anchoring the landscape with physical presence. Some are intimate, asking you to lean in. All of them belong here.

This isn't a gallery installation. There are no placards or velvet ropes. The works exist alongside the olive trees and the kitchen garden and the quiet hum of wine country life—part of the property's fabric rather than an addition to it. ÆRENA, which operates five galleries across Northern California, curated each piece with that intention—to complement the natural landscape and architectural character of Appellation Healdsburg, creating moments of discovery that reveal themselves at their own pace.

Where Metal Meets Motion

Two works by Damon Hyldreth anchor the property with quiet force. Phoenix5—a Tnemec-painted steel form standing five feet tall—greets guests near the entrance, its deep red curves drawing the eye before much else has registered. Blueberry Illusion, a powder-coated piece in cobalt blue standing six feet high and four feet wide, holds its own further into the grounds. Together, they establish a visual conversation between color and form that threads through the whole property.

Hyldreth has spent his career studying what metal wants to become. A 2004 graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, he approaches his materials as collaborators—coaxing forms from steel that feel simultaneously organic and architectural. The result is sculpture that appears both frozen and alive, rigid and fluid at once. His work lives in collections that include the Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong, the W Hotel Taipei, and Neiman Marcus Houston. Standing beside his pieces at Appellation, you understand why—they have the rare quality of changing depending on where you're standing and what light is doing.

Paper Folded Into Forever

Two sculptures by Kevin Box take a different approach entirely. Blue Bird and Emerging Peace—realized in collaboration with master paper artists Robert J. Lang and Michael G. LaFosse respectively—began as origami. What Box does is cast that paper into bronze and stainless steel, preserving every delicate crease and weightless fold in a material built to outlast centuries.

"It took two years of tireless experimentation for me to develop the process of casting paper into bronze," Box has said, "another seven years to perfect, and it continues to evolve today."

Box studied graphic arts in New York before a formative trip to Greece redirected him toward metal casting. He spent three years at Texas foundries learning the medium before opening his own studio in Santa Fe. His monumental works have since been installed at the Austin City Symphony, the Four Seasons Washington D.C., and in collections spanning Australia, Morocco, and Japan.

At Appellation, Blue Bird perches at garden scale—cast bronze, 60 inches tall—its wings caught mid-movement, suspended somewhere between origami and flight. Emerging Peace rises in painted and patinated stainless steel from a marble base, just over seven feet high, a figure of remarkable delicacy given its size and material. Both pieces invite you to reach out and touch them, which Box actively encourages. He believes the tactile and the visual together complete the experience—that running a hand along a cast fold is its own form of understanding.

A Rust-Patina Giant

Gyro, by Vermont-based artist David Tanych, is the largest work on the property—86 inches tall and nearly as wide in every direction, steel aged to a deep, warm rust through acid etching. It occupies a prominent position at the entrance to Appellation Healdsburg, visible from multiple vantage points, its scale impossible to walk past without registering.

Tanych came to sculpture through decades of building furniture and homes, eventually arriving at blacksmithing through summer sessions at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. His sculptures have been likened to the work of Claes Oldenburg for their boldness and wit, and his work has appeared in Architectural Digest, Dwell, and Forbes Life, with installations in public collections from Palm Springs to Vermont. Gyro has a presence that shifts as you move around it—less an object you observe and more a space you enter.

The Architecture of Wind

Troy Pillow's Azure—nearly eight feet tall in painted stainless steel—brings kinetic energy to its corner of the property. On a still morning it catches light; in a breeze, it moves. Pillow studied architectural engineering and environmental design at the University of Colorado, and those foundations inform everything about how his sculptures meet air and weather. The piece balances vibrantly hued elements against clean geometry with a restraint that feels effortless—sculptural, but never overwrought.

Pillow developed his style through years of self-directed experimentation, drawn to the tension between organic nature and precise geometry. His commissions span the country, from AVA Capitol Hill in Seattle to the Atlanta Botanical Park, and Azure fits squarely in that legacy—a work designed to be outside, in changing light, where it can keep revealing itself.

A Bronze Mermaid and a Sculptor's Wit

Sirena, a 28-inch bronze by Giuseppe Palumbo, operates on an entirely different register—compact, figurative, warm. Nestled lower to the ground than the surrounding pieces, she rewards the guests who slow down enough to find her.

Palumbo is the son of an Italian artist, and his path to sculpture wound through architecture (three of his projects were designated national landmarks), international kayak racing, and formal study at the Florence Academy of Art and the American Academy in Rome. His bronzes blend classical technique with contemporary wit—anthropomorphic figures that carry irony alongside beauty, inviting emotional connection in ways that catch viewers off guard. Sirena carries that spirit—a figure both ancient and immediate, at home among the gardens in a way that feels less like placement and more like she simply belongs there.

Sculpture as Part of the Place

The seven works move through the property the way any good element of design should—present without announcing themselves, enriching without overwhelming. A morning walk looks different when you know what's waiting around the next turn. An afternoon glass of wine tastes a little better with something worth considering in the middle distance.

ÆRENA Galleries has long understood that the right work in the right place can shift how people experience everything around it. At Appellation Healdsburg, where place is the whole point, that instinct finds its fullest expression.

All seven works are available for acquisition through ÆRENA Galleries. For inquiries, visit aerenagalleries.com or stop by the Healdsburg gallery at 115 Plaza St.