Artist Scott Cawood will be featured at the re-opening of Ricco Gallery on June 12.

Scott Cawood, a metal artist whose works range from a golden-beaked, forged steel American eagle designed to perch on a motorcycle gas tank, to a steel cityscape of Annapolis, Maryland, will open a one-man show of his works on June 12, 2009 at Ricco Gallery in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

The public is invited to an opening reception at the gallery from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, June 12. The show will continue indefinitely, including throughout the Contemporary American Theater Festival – from July 8 to Aug. 2 – that attracts thousands of Washington, D.C. and Baltimore-area residents to Shepherdstown annually. The gallery is located at 125 W. German St.

“Scott Cawood is a uniquely gifted sculptor whose fertile imagination matches his consummate skills. Ricco Gallery is proud to be able to offer this extensive, varied collection of his works,” says gallery owner Riccardo Accurso.

Cawood, whose studio is in Antietam, Md., got his metalworking start repairing helicopters in the Coast Guard in the 1970s. Subsequently he studied at Turley’s Forge and Blacksmithing School in Santa Fe, N.M., and with master blacksmith Daniel Hurwitz in Brownsville, Md. Over the years his wide variety of imaginative metal sculptures have appeared in shows in New York, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Miami, New Orleans and Las Vegas, among others.

“Sirens of Ti Chopper,” a life-sized motorcycle sculpture featuring a blue-eyed Siren figurehead with her hair flowing behind her in the wind, is on permanent display at the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

“Crane Cool Wings,” a 6-foot tall bird, whose spindly wings were fashioned from windshield wipers, can be seen at the Baltimore Public Works Museum. The House of Lounge lingerie shop in New Orleans has sold Cawood’s metal sculptures of bustiers and spike heels. Other works, including a re-creation of the National Mall and downtown Washington, D.C. in steel, are in private collections. His sculpture is also featured in two recent coffee-table art books: “From Fire To Form,”by Mathew S. Clarke, and “Found Object Art II,” by Tina Skinner.

Included in the show will be four works in a new series the artist has dubbed “Feral.” Cawood explains “it all has to do with the idea of returning to the wild … about our tendencies from within bubbling up from the surface.” One of the series, a figure of a head that also is a lamp is “Fu Manchu.” With a stake of concrete rebar running horizontally through his nose and a spiky crown of drill bits” says Cawood, “Fu Manchu is a self-portrait of the wild man that lives within me my soul warrior.”

The show will continue through Aug. 2. For more information including opportunities to meet the artist personally on Sundays, contact Ricco Gallery, (304) 876-1513 or e-mail: ellenhof@comcast.net