GALVANIZE SHEFFIELD: Michael's inflatable has it all figured out
ONE of the most striking artworks on display at the Galvanize Festival of Contemporary Metal Design and Innovation isn't made of metal.
The large PVC inflatable suspended from the roof of the Winter Garden is by sculptor Michael Shaw and inspired by his period as artist-in-residence at Davy Markham heavy engineering works at Darnall.
He was commissioned by Galvanize to create a piece of temporary public art which throws a light on the impressive work and the innovations of Sheffield's metal businesses.
The artist from Loughborough says he found his first impression of the works "utterly overwhelming".
"What was special about the experience is that everything looked familiar. You see bits you might have at home but the scale is all wrong. Everything is massive. The tools and huge castings are immense, things like the chucks make you feel Lilliputian. There are steel ropes as thick as your arm."
"You can't compete with that," continues the artist. "It's a question of extrapolating a sense of the place. It's like an industrial cathedral. You might even think a place like that doesn't exist any more and everything comes from China."
Shaw is an artist who specialises in abstract inflatables. "I am very interested in the idea of singular form with both unity and variation which sounds like a paradox. But you can do things with geometry of elemental forms," he says.
One of the things that the work responds to, he explains, is the way that so much of the action in the engineering works is circular motion, whether turning machines or bores.
That's one of the most obvious connections with my work and here there is a figure of eight implied
And surely the contrast between the heavy engineering and his light as air artwork? "Ah, yes but they make things light," he responds, "you see all these huge pieces of machinery suspended in the air from cranes.
"I am pleased my piece is being shown in an atrium because it gives it a sense of space and an ethereal quality, especially at night time.
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Thursday 09 February 2012
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