ICE GATE artist new public art project

GORDON HALLORAN to represent Canada in Miami

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. The art fair opens January 13th at The Miami Beach Convention Center. Art Palm Beach opens January 20th.

Lotus in Motion – The Watercolor Project is series of floating paintings whose form is inspired by a familiar shape, 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 as they are set afloat in a river, lake or large pond and allowed to flow and interact in an ever-changing montage of vivid, overlapping colour. At the art fairs, the paintings will be displayed on the floor and set into gentle movement by motion sensors activated by viewers.



Mr Halloran, whose most recent work ICE GATE, was viewed by hundreds of thousands of people at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, takes his inspiration for Lotus in Motion – The Watercolor Project from the water lily paintings of Impressionist painter Claude Monet as well as floating shards of Arctic ice that break free onto the surface of water in the winter. The Lotus project evolved from his work over the last two decades in ice. (www.paintingsbelowzero.com).

Lotus in Motion – The Watercolor 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 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 a Canadian artist, well known to world audiences as the creator of Paintings Below Zero. His monumental site-specific public art installations of non representational paintings in ice have fascinated audiences: in Chicago, 176,000 people came out to see his 200' long x 14' high Museum of Modern Ice; at Toronto City Hall, 50,000 people saw Paintings Below Zero an 80' long x 10' wide installation. In Turin, Halloran was Canada’s official representative to the 2006 Cultural Olympiad; his project filled an entire church with Paintings Below Zero. At the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games he created Icegate, a 100' x 14' frozen installation.

THE FAIRS:
MIA is host to 80 prestigious international dealers featuring contemporary, emerging, conceptual and modern art including photography, installations, performance and video. Miami has become the hottest global destination for the business of art; MIA is organized by IFAE, the largest and most experienced US- based art fair exhibition company with a successful track record of over 70 international fairs. IFAE has established partnerships with museums, universities and other art-related institutions to ensure a fully integrated fair with innovative curatorial projects. MIA is directed by dealer and curator Aldo Castillo.