On the second floor of the newly renovated Zachry Engineering Education Complex, two sprawling displays frame the building’s central staircase. Both are chaotic and multilayered, their mix of materials and shapes flying horizontally down the hallway. Mirrored, black and iridescent acrylic lines and arrows dance over each other to convey motion and technological advancement.

The two artworks live under the names “Shapeshifting to Transcend Limbo” and “Transcending Realms: Chaos and Flow, Love and Fear.” The artist, Lyndi Sales, who hails from Cape Town, South Africa, was one of 10 global artists commissioned to create artwork for display in and around the state-of-the-art engineering complex.

The works were the result of meeting with and collecting data from a team of researchers within the College of Engineering who are working with sonic boom and shapeshifting materials. Sales was inspired by aircraft design, aerodynamics tests and data visualization when considering the shape and look of her art. “Shapeshifting” imitates the distinctive cone of a speeding supersonic aircraft (pictured below), while “Transcending” evokes the sound wave of a sonic boom (above).

Sales’ work debuted along with nine other dynamic pieces when the Zachry Complex opened on Aug. 25, 2018. Artists for these works were selected from a pool of more than 100 candidates, and each piece on display represents the merging of art with science, technology, engineering and mathematics to inspire creativity in students who pass by.