a newbie

Exciting yes it is!!! Sydney is getting a brand new piece of permanent public artwork being opened tHIS WEEEEEEK!!!! The work Aspire is by professional light-based Australian artist Warren Langley. Here is a pre-visual of the piece to be opened:

It's trees. Lovely big golden trees propping up the Western Distrbutor. Here is the official word from the Lord Mayer who is opening the work tomorrow night:

The work, by eminent Australian artist Warren Langley, features a forest of golden trees which stretch upwards and appear to keep the vast bulk of the freeway at bay. Internal environmentally friendly lighting, which I will switch on at the launch, creates their golden
hue.

The finished work recalls the combined activism of local community members who helped save local housing from being totally obliterated by the freeway and inspires and reminds us that we can all aspire to creating a better environment.

Launch of Aspire by Warren Langley: Wednesday 19 May, 6.15pm, Under the Western Distributor, Corner of Bulwarra Road and Fig Street, Ultimo.


Now, you may remember Warren Langely from last years VIVID / Smartlight festival. He did the big ugly pot-vase full of 80's style flowers. It was a work that irked me to tears and I totally wrote him off as an ugly person.


HOWEVER, since I discovered he was repsonsible for this new work, which I actually really like, I was promted to look further into his past bits. Here are some pieces that I found that are, quite frankly, wonderful. And I am now reassured that even professional Public Artists have bad-hair days and put out complete doozeys. Ahhhhh, the humanity.































And lastly, a work by a different artist from last years VIVID / Smartlight Festival, who actually really nailed it and I felt compelled to include in this post because it is so so so so beautiful. Francesco Mariotti's work titled Fire Flies. The sculpture used low energy lighting and recycled materials such as PET bottles to create a poignant piece about the effects of urban lighting on the lifecycle of fireflies. MwaH! What a delicious use of medium to convey a message, and so perfectly captures the flitty, phosphuorescent light of a firefly.


FYI, VIVID is just about to launch its 2010 season minus the Smartlight component. I got an email which assured everyone that it will be back again next year. I hope so, it has so much growing to do and so much growing of artists in return.