Client: Shoalhaven City Council
Location: Shoalhaven, Australia
Completion date: 2019
Project Team
Manager Director
Bronwyn Coulston
Shoalhaven Regional Gallery
Managing Director
Vic Kalloghlian
Allplastics Engineering Pty Ltd
Overview
Created from hand painted polycarbonate, and assorted acrylic elements heat manipulated and constructed together, Layered Potential explores the psychological state of the layering of ideas to arrive at new and unexpected conclusions. The figure and abstracted imagination forms are shown installed on a wall within the main gallery space at Shoalhaven Regional Gallery as part of the artist’s solo exhibition titled Plaception.
MATERIALS: Acrylic, polycarbonate, paint
MEASUREMENTS: (1 X Life Size Figure) + (Abstract elements 9m X 3m approx.)
Goals
Acrylic – which is a transparent and yet solid material that is able to be manipulated through heat, etched into, cut and joined drawing parallels to assumingly fixed ideas in the mind that have the inevitable fate of change.
The gallery environment sets the platform for this psychological narrative to manifest physically and visually. This narrative is dynamically woven into the space which structurally supports the installation. The artwork utilises the framing ability of the clear backdrop of the white wall which highlights the overlapping shapes and colours of the colourful acrylic elements.
Layered Potential includes one life size figure ascending, she is depicted in a gesture of reaching out into the space beyond and projecting shapes and colours, representative of the layering of ideas, into the space.
Process
Elyssa Sykes-Smith was invited by the Shoalhaven Regional Gallery to have a solo show in the main gallery, 2019.
This process entailed working in collaboration with the exhibition team to plan, select and install the artworks. A thorough site-visit was required to plan the artwork which included taking photos, videos and measurements of the site, and discussing the limitations regarding fixing elements to the site such, public safety and considerations surrounding potential artwork vandalism. The artwork was pre-fabricated in parts (polycarbonate was cut) at All Plastics Engineering, painted and constructed in main sections the artist’s studio and then delivered to the gallery and installed along with the other artworks that were part of the exhibition.