MARK HANDFORTH: Redwood Blue
Artist Statement
My work has drawn extensively from the urban context in which I find myself, from a kind of available poetry of the street. I have used lampposts, highway signage, trash cans and hydrants as both muse and readymade; as a means to reflect on the strange twisted beauty of the created and uncre- ated environment in which we live. We can view nature through the prism of the city - to see the varied forms of the urban landscape as hybrids and adaptations of an organic original; and to see the fusion of these organic and industrial symbols as a strange and beautiful embrace. I live in a tropical city, where vines and strangler figs swallow walls and lampposts whole. It’s energizing to feel that one day this jungle will take back our shining glass city and eat it up for breakfast. Public works exists within this beautiful dynamism. Art is by its very nature public, or should be. A discourse between people, a conversation on the street.
In my work I have often tried to explore the role that art plays within our wider world; to think about the private and public spheres that it slips in and out of. About what it can and can’t achieve; about those varied experiences and about how an artwork can hold its own, yet simultaneously give itself over. The public realm is by definition full of unpredictable activity, of colors and responses, actions and objects entirely beyond my control, so my sculptures are quite deliberately made to be surrounded by people; completed by crowds.
Redwood Blue is a richly colored standing star that rises from the pavement, tree-like, above our heads; its corona of folded arms and vibrant light- lines shining. Rooted at the nexus of Redwood Square and Frances Street, distinctly visible from so many vistas, the arcing, lyrical form plays against the straight lines of the architecture while nodding to the ancient organic poetry of the Redwoods themselves.
The sculpture’s iconic kinetic form and glowing light arrays act, beacon-like, as a waypoint, framed by the Frances Street arch and distinct from every vantage point. The dynamic, twisting relationship between the criss-crossed elements changes as the viewer movse closer, circles around, and connects with the sculpture.
Like so many depictions of stars, ubiquitous yet magical icons, this sculpture is in essence an imaginary structure that allows lines of light to be drawn in space. The folded aluminum, their fluid gestures like brushed calligraphy, describe a continuous, inevitable movement through space, a mind’s eye process writ large. Like a dancing body, the sculpture is at once defiantly fluid and stubbornly material. Redwood Blue exists as play between the loose- ness of the intention and the physical weighted reality of objecthood.
Rich blue metal planes holding bright lines of vivid red, amber, and violet light reflect that peculiar duality; so too the structural webbing of the leg, hard triangular plates criss-crossing languid form.
As residents and visitors to Cityline mingle around the sculpture, its colored light pools emanating through the air, it becomes an essential part of all that life, jaunty and fluorescent. Not distant at all, Redwood Blue is more like another figure at the party. – Mark Handforth
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MARK HANDFORTH
Proposed Artwork - Maquette
Maquette View 1 Maquette View 2
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MARK HANDFORTH
Proposed Artwork - Maquette
Maquette View 3
Past work showing lighting technique
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MARK HANDFORTH: Redwood Blue
Elevation & Dimensions
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MARK HANDFORTH: Redwood Blue
Materials & Maintenance
Materials & Maintenance Details
The sculpture will consist of a combination of powder-coated aluminum and stainless steel channels with highly efficient waterguard lights. The pow- ercoating method protects the aluminum from rusting, and the stainless steel is inherently rust-proof.
Maintenance of the sculpture will require changing out the bulbs approximately every 50,000 to 100,000 hours of use, as well as washing the sculp- ture with water and common detergent. Pressure hoses and cleaning agents should never be used on the sculpture.
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MARK HANDFORTH: Redwood Blue
Artwork Rendering
Color rendering by Bionic
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Note: Sculpture will be various shades of blue. Colored lights will change the perceived color of blue.
MARK HANDFORTH: Redwood Blue
Artwork Rendering
Color rendering by Bionic
Attachment 11
Note: Sculpture will be various shades of blue. Colored lights will change the perceived color of blue.
MARK HANDFORTH: Redwood Blue
Artwork Rendering
Color rendering by Bionic
Attachment 11
Note: Sculpture will be various shades of blue. Colored lights will change the perceived color of blue.