Contact:  Shelley Osterloh,  801-718-5599
Representing Sculptor Lena Toritch
Young Fine Art Studio, Inc
Toll free: 877-362-7708
Direct: 801-359-2451

27 March 2009 – Lena Toritch Selected to Sculpt Bronze Statues for New Utah State Patriotic Monument

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March 31, 2009 – Lena Toritch, MFA Sculptor, was selected as associate artist for the Utah Freedom Memorial. The UFM executive steering committee announced the monument will be located at the Sandy City Promenade green space in Sandy City, Utah.    The large monument celebrates freedom,   honors our military, and teaches respect for liberty and those who defend it.    It was designed by Monument Arts which selected Toritch to sculpture five life size bronze figures for the monument.

It is fitting that this classically trained Russian artist should add her talent to honor the freedom she cherishes in her adopted home, the United States of America.  “The overall design of the monument is stunning and I am so honored to have been selected to sculpt the bronze statues that will add the human feeling and emotion to the monument,”   said Lena Toritch. 

She describes her own experience this way:    “I felt free the moment I arrived in the U.S.   Freedom was in the air itself, in people’s smiles, in magnificent nature.   Every day I am reminded not to take this freedom for granted.   Working on this monument gives me an opportunity to give something back to this great country.”

Toritch has received a lot media attention recently for her large monument commission, the Utah Enforcement Memorial located at the Utah State Capitol.  Her three heroic bronze statues are the centerpiece of the monument that honors the triumph, sacrifice and patriotism of Law Officers.

Toritch mastered anatomy, composition, and technique skills as a graduate student (MFA) at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts in Russia, her home town. But the drive for perfection in her work is rooted in her upbringing amid the art-enriched culture of Russia. Lena’s father, a professional sculptor, challenged the young girl to always improve on her work through studying great masters of the past and learning to see the world with an artist’s eye.

Granted “Artist of Exceptional Ability” status, Toritch has been working in the United States for the past 15 years as a partner in Young Fine Art Studio.  Her commissions come from all over the country for private, corporate, and public collections; her bronzes have been displayed in a number of international shows.