Meet Denzel Stephenson | Sculptor, Cyclist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Denzel Stephenson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Denzel, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Keeping balance in my life has always been something I’ve prioritized. Coming from my days as a professional cyclist, I am very in tune with how my body is feeling and this helps me discern when I need to take time to recover. I incorporate this kind of thinking in sculpture practice as well because my work takes a lot of physical time and effort to produce. That being said, I still have times where I struggle to give myself that space and end up over exerting myself without competent recovery. I find that my overall life balance has shifted since I really dove into my art practice and that I’m working on getting that back under control.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
So to start, I grew up in Colorado and spent most of my childhood and early adult life as a cyclist. I raced cyclocross and mountain bikes predominately and that was pretty much all I wanted to do for many years. When I was 19 I was racing for a professional road team when I got mononucleosis and was forced to take a step back from racing to recover. This led me to go back to regular school, I was taking classes online at the community college but I wanted to get back to in-person classes. I was studying Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at CU Boulder and I only got about a semester before COVID hit and everything was back to online classes. This was fine and I was on track to graduate within a year when my girlfriend got in contact with Tina Pic, the cycling coach at SCAD Atlanta and we both ended up getting an offer to come race for the school. My experience with art up to this point was taking a couple elective classes at CU and enjoying them but I really didn’t see myself as an artist until a couple years into SCAD. Once we got to Atlanta I had a hard time adjusting to the big city and having limited options as far as riding goes. For a while I was debating leaving SCAD to go back and finish my previous degree but once I got into my sculpture classes I started to really enjoy my work. Now I’m very glad that I chose to stick it out and make the most of the opportunity to live somewhere new and get to lean into living as an artist. There were challenging points for sure but those are what has made the journey here all the more worth it.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Personally I’m not much of a going out person and I haven’t gone to big attractions in town. My favorite parts about Atlanta are riding through the neighborhoods by bike. I find it really cool how each place has a unique energy and feel to it and there is a lot of neighborhood pride here. If I had friends come to visit I would take them on some rides through town and show them these areas such as East Atlanta and the West End. SCAD is in midtown so I would like to show my friends the studio where I work and while we’re there we could check out the High museum as well. Atlanta has a big music scene so as far as events go it’s always possible to find a good show to go see.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My parents have always supported my through my years of bike racing which has led me to come to SCAD Atlanta to race for the cycling team here. Tina Pic, the coach at SCAD also deserves a shoutout for giving me the opportunity to come to school here and get introduced to the art world. My professors Martha Whittington and Justin Archer have been my biggest mentors as far as helping me as I’ve developed my work over the past couple years.

Website: https://733denzel733.wixsite.com/my-site

Instagram: stephenson.sculpture

Image Credits
Studio Photo: Jessica Bednarcik Photo of Roof installation: Dasom Choi