Nature-themed Lego sculptures returning to Morton Arboretum

Imagine playing with Legos as a child, assembling the bricks one by one until they become a work of art.

Now imagine using tens of thousands of pieces to create a single, larger-than-life sculpture.

The devil is in the details when it comes to the 15 colorful, nature-themed displays that can be found along the pathways of Lisle's Morton Arboretum starting next month, said Sarah Sargent, manager of interpretation and exhibits.

Artist Sean Kenney creates the sculptures entirely from Legos, designed to show off the realistic coloring of a peacock's feathers or the intricate patterns of a Monarch butterfly's wings.

Collectively, those details are made up of more than a half-million bricks.

"It's hard to convey in words how incredible this is. They're really astonishing when you see them in person," Sargent said. "Everybody played with Legos growing up. There's a real connection there."

The traveling exhibit, called "Nature Connects: Art with Lego Bricks," was a crowd-pleaser when it first visited the arboretum in 2015, she said. It will return May 24 through Sept. 15 with three new displays: a bee midflight, a woodpecker with a crimson crest and an oak tree sprouting from an acorn.

Among the 12 returning designs are an 8-foot-long dragonfly, a nearly life-size family of deer, a hummingbird drinking nectar from a trumpet flower, and an ant hill with mosaic face cutouts that allow visitors to play the part of the insects.

The displays, which took a total of 4,570 hours to build, will be arranged along trails throughout the arboretum's east side, near the children's garden, Sargent said.

Kenney, a New York artist, is one of the world's first Lego certified professionals and has spent more than a decade creating the contemporary displays for high-profile clients, corporations, and venues worldwide. His award-winning "Nature Connects" collection contains hundreds of sculptures and has been touring North America, Asia and Europe since 2012.

"This (exhibit) is really a good fit for the arboretum," Sargent said. "There are creatures that people will recognize, and also some really surprising ones. It's a good mix of the familiar and the truly astonishing."

Visitors also can create their own Lego masterpieces and participate in other themed programming through the duration of the exhibit, arboretum officials said. A June 11 program called "The Nature Behind Nature Connects" will teach attendees more about the animals, insects and plants featured in Kenney's artwork.

The exhibit is free with arboretum admission.