Public art by Gordon Halloran

VanDusen Botanical Garden to host Lotus in Motion



Multi-coloured lotus leaves to float on two lakes, one pond in July

JUNE 6, 2011, Vancouver - Artist Gordon Halloran, who most recently completed a wall of ice paintings called ICE GATE for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, will bring another brilliantly coloured outdoor public art installation to the city of Vancouver in July, 2011 called Lotus In Motion, the Watercolour Project.

VanDusen Botanical Garden is the setting for the two-lake-one-pond installation, made up of multiple paintings in the shape of the lily pad, bold in colour and varied in size. Visitors will see the artwork as they walk the paths, touring the gardens. Livingston Lake, Heather Pond, and Heron Lake will contain the paintings which will float on the water. A smaller installation will also be featured in the pool of the Bentall Garden just inside the Garden Entrance. The installation opens to the public July 29th.

Gordon Halloran’s Lotus In Motion uses site, scale and colour to attract viewers. Like bees to bright flowers, onlookers are seduced by vibrancy, lured out of individual pursuits into collective play.



Working along the trajectory of his unique, sculptural ice paintings, (Paintings Below Zero), Halloran employs water as part of the artwork’s physicality. Floating lily pads in a variety of sizes, Lotus In Motion is an installation of shape and hue that finds inspiration in Claude Monet’s Impressionist waterlilies, calving Arctic icebergs, and overlapping organic textures of landscape flora. Halloran’s lotus paintings bud from the natural world – each composition, a layering of pattern and hue resplendent with vigour.

When the new $20 million Visitor Centre opens at VanDusen in September 2011, Lotus In Motion will provide a backdrop of magnificent colour to the building in the garden setting.



In addition, the artist is creating a new series of Lotus In Motion paintings for a parallel exhibit. While the water installation uses a combination of materials designed to stay afloat and intact in the water as well as to be seen from a distance, the permanent wall paintings are made of slightly different multi-layered materials, rich in texture, lacework, and brilliant colour.

A special press preview on Thursday, July 28th is planned at VanDusen Botanical Garden, with the artist in attendance. For press information on this opening, contact Caitlin Hicks (604)886-3634. Lotus in Motion, the Watercolour Project runs until September 30.

Dragonfly on a lotus leaf

At the BENEFIT FOR PUBLIC ART held at the artist's studio and garden this past weekend, Gord read from a book which has resonated with him called "Smile of the Buddha".



In this book are his favorite artists: Monet, van Gogh, Gauguin, Kandinsky, Brancusi, O'Keefe, Klein, Jasper Johns, Cage. All of them, it turns out, are linked by observation of the present moment.



Claude Monet, painter of stillness and reflection, was one of the first artists to suggest a meditative state of mind with his artwork. With his water garden in Giverny, he joined his meditation on impermanence with the idea of regeneration and renewal; renewal that can be observed in the garden, with the seasons, the birds, insects and plants.



On Thursday, Gord installed the floating paintings in the garden pond, surrounded by yellow and purple iris, red azalea, green and lime lady's mantle, fish, birds, dragonflies. Erik Olson took photos, while volunteers shopped, worked in the kitchen, prepared tapas, designed the programme, cleaned and sorted furniture. Getting ready.



The sun made shadows in the fresh air.



Tomorrow: Friday night by the garden pond. People, paintings.

Making art

BENEFIT for PUBLIC ART

Discoveries of abstraction

Generate. Proliferate. Grow. Without limit, Halloran’s lotus paintings bud from the natural world ­– each composition, a layering of pattern and hue resplendent with vigour. By gesture and action, through pattern and structure, the paintings link to nature. With the lotus a shape symbolic of purity and calm, it’s aquatic habitat a peaceful meditation, each painting becomes a unique haiku.



Wing and leaf, feather and petal, all are employed to coalesce as lotus. Everything is possible; every combination of line and colour may be utilized, like chance joining of genetic material making each family member individual yet related.


Temperate rainforest, garden forms and pond life, the flora and fauna that surround Halloran, engender the intention of vital luminosity.

Process

Met with Lee Roberts of GOLDMOSS GALLERY just down the road. The weather, wet. We've been to their wonderful/urban (meaning modern, sophisticated, welcoming) gallery in the trees. Lee looked at 'the art' in a way that was so refreshing -- and he wants to exhibit Gord's work soon in the gallery.


Meanwhile, Gord puts a lotus leaf into the garden pond, testing the latest breakthrough in materials. It's taking a long time; he's really in a developmental stage - he's working out a process that's different for the permanent work to go on the walls and the public work to go in the water. Materials have to be ordered and shipped and then there's the drawing, sketching, the necessary computer, the printing, the application of encaustic. Mounting and framing. He thinks he 'has got it' ... and then comes up with another, sleeker, or more environmentally friendly, permutation. Yesterday it was vinyl paper. Today it's cork.


We visited Cornerstone in Sonoma. Sculpturesite. a new leaf gallery.



The gallery is open, light and full of excellent world class artwork. Suzan Hampton, Assistant Director is entranced by paintingsbelowzero, by LOTUS. They have water, and look at all that sun.


We also met with Greg Lejnieks, owner of Chloe Fine Art Gallery in San Francisco to talk about representation there. Here is Amy Nelder, his wife, but first, an amazing artist - she makes it look easy - her work is sort of hyper realist modern still life but she calls it 'pop trompe d'oeil' .. She was doing her work in the gallery while their daughter Chloe, napped. Here they are, all 3.


Today, another bright but damp spring day, we are planning for the FUNDRAISER to be held on June 17th, a Friday. It's going to be a garden party, with guests getting a preview of the installation in the garden setting. If you are interested in helping, or attending, please comment here, with your contact info. Or contact me at hickshalloran at dccnet.com

Spring!

Here are a few simulations of VanDusen gardens with LOTUS installation. This is Livingston Lake.



Gord daily works with the texture of the individual paintings themselves- discovering their float-ability and durability in water. It's tricky, similar to ice. There are numerous variations, as he applies the eco-friendly epoxy to the surface of foam, to paper, to pigment. What floats? What preserves the color? He's using garden colors and floats the paintings in the pond out front, where spring, one degree at a time, awakens. Here's Heron Lake.

He's also creating stunning paintings for indoor display - using encaustic backdrop artwork, combining it with pigment peeled away from the foam, to create deeply textured, transparent and translucent meditation on the lotus leaf.


Although this picture of Heather Lake at VanDusen was taken in the fall - just picture what this will be like in summer when the installation opens on July 7th.