NIKE SAVVAS has created a large-scale, site-specific commission for the Toi Art Gallery at Te Papa Tongawera, Museum of New Zealand.
Made up of thousands of colourful tabs suspended mid-flight, Finale: Bouquet is a kinetic, colourful and optically dazzling art installation. As a student of painting in the 1980s, Savvas became increasingly dissatisfied with the assumed two-dimensionality of the medium and the prescribed limits of its materials. Her practice has since developed a central concern with the broader experiential zone of conceptual, spatial and sensorial immersion. "It's like a huge abstract expressionist painting", she says of Finale, "a painting in the making, with tens of thousands of brushstrokes." The colours Savvas has chosen are inspired by the watercolour artworks of native flora by the early 20th century New Zealand artist Sarah Featon.
The exhibition will continue until 12 January 2020.
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Images: Nike Savvas, Finale: Bouquet, 2019, recyclable plastic, electric fans, 7.8 x 18.9 x 8.7 m. Photos courtesy of Te Papa.
