International artist Gordon Halloran, invited to be the feature artist in Public Art at the Miami International Art Fair and Art Palm Beach announces the installation he will create there, Lotus in Motion, The Watercolor Project to open January 13th at The Miami Beach Convention Center.
Lotus in Motion – The Watercolor Project is series of floating paintings that represent in a simple and abstract form, the lily pad of a lotus flower. Each floating painting is approximately 4 to 8 feet in diameter and is uniquely designed to work in harmony with an unlimited number of others on the floor of the conference center.
These paintings will flow together in an ever changing montage of overlapping color and transparency, set into gentle movement by motion sensors activated by viewers.
Mr Halloran takes his inspiration for Lotus in Motion – The Watercolor Project from the water lily paintings of Impressionist painter Claude Monet. This is combined with Halloran’s fascination with floating shards of ice that break free onto the surface of the water in the winter. (www.paintingsbelowzero.com). With Lotus in Motion – The Watercolor Project, Mr. Halloran enlarges the scale of the work significantly and creates artificial movement to suggest a breeze on a body of water. This work parallels projects the artist is involved with in other cities, where the paintings are displayed on lakes, ponds and other bodies of water.
The Lotus Project is an interactive installation. The movement and flow of the floating works are activated by motion sensors that take their cue from movement along the shoreline of the lake. As the audience moves at the edge of the water, the work slowly turns and slides over, creating new shapes and color relationships. This interaction creates a new compositions every day the installation is on-site.
After the public installations in Miami, the installation will be moved to Art Palm Beach, January 20th – 24th. Singular paintings from the installation Lotus in Motion – The Watercolor Project will be available for sale on an individual basis.
THE ARTIST
Gordon Halloran is well known to world audiences as the creator of Paintings Below Zero. His monumental public art installations of non-representational paintings in ice have fascinated audiences in Chicago, Toronto, Niagara-on-the-lake, Turin, Vancouer and Richmond. In Turin Halloran was Canada’s official representative to the Cultural Olympiad for the 2006 Olympics; in Richmond he created ICE GATE for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Currently he is the feature artist for public art at the Miami International Art Fair and Art Palm Beach.
