Client: Jackalope Hotels

Location: Melbourne, Australia

Completion date: 2017

Project Team

Artist

Emily Floyd

Art Consultant

Anna Schwartz

Anna Schwartz Gallery

Client

Louis Li

Jackalope Hotel

Industry Resource

UAP Brisbane

UAP (Urban Art Projects)

Overview

Internationally renowned Australian contemporary artist Emily Floyd, represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery in Melbourne, collaborated with UAP to fabricate an artwork commission for Jackalope Hotel on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

Goals

Emily Floyd’s monumental sculpture of the hotel’s namesake depicts the mythical Jackalope creature – an abstract jackrabbit with antelope horns. Standing over 6 meters tall in the hotel’s forecourt, the artwork invites viewers to ask questions of the space and place in which we exist.

Process

Cast in aluminium and finished with a non-reflective black satin finish with gold highlights on the antlers, the artwork sets the tone for the hotel, merging hospitality with art, theatre and mythology. This artwork is a continuation of Floyd’s public art practice that explores large-scale, geometric and abstract forms that are often reminiscent of childhood toys. In this work, Floyd’s Jackalope brings a striking, theatrical and whimsical element to the hotel landscape. Floyd worked with UAP to deliver the complex engineering, fabrication and installation of this iconic artwork in Melbourne, Australia.