User:AMST30197PublicArt/sandbox/Baptism

Baptism is a public artwork by American artist Cambid J. Choy, located at the University of Notre Dame, which is near South Bend, Indiana. Installed in 1993, the work is constructed from marble, granite, and steel. It depicts a partially submerged man undergoing the Catholic rite of Baptism. The piece is 178" x 32" x 32" and is located at the Southeast corner of DeBartolo Hall, an academic building on campus.

Description
Baptism consists of three white marble carvings, each seated atop a black granite platform on steel risers. The carvings depict the exposed face and hands of a man who is otherwise submerged in water, with the polished surface of the granite standing in for the water's surface. The sculpture is visually realistic but significantly larger than life-size, with a wingspan of nearly fifteen feet. The sculpture sits in a bed of gravel just behind a bike rack for for Debartolo Hall.

Artist
The piece was created by Cambid Choy, a sculptor originally from Honolulu, Hawaii. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Notre Dame, followed by a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Kentucky. After spending some time on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, Choy joined the faculty of Kenai Peninsula College in Alaska as an Associate Professor of Art. His primary influences in his work are Renaissance pieces he saw during travel in Italy, and he cites "the human figure as the foundation of [his] work".