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.