Nike Savvas, Sliding Ladder: yellow with blue pentagon (detail), 2012, wool, wood and steel, 219x231.5x382cm.
SPARKS
Nike Savvas
5 March - 5 April 2014
ARC ONE GALLERY, Melbourne
ARC ONE is excited to present Nike Savvas’ first exhibition in Melbourne since her iconic installation Atomic: Full of Love, Full of Wonder at ACCA in 2005. Sparks will showcase a new series of prints, like molten suns, and feature vibrant wall-vinyls. The gallery will also be filled with large woven sculptures akin to those exhibited in Liberty and Anarchy, at Leeds Art Gallery, U.K. (2012 -2013). Sparks will be immersive, humming and true to the masterful use of space for which Savvas is renowned.
The work Sliding Ladder: yellow with blue pentagon (2012), from Savvas’ Sliding Ladder series inspired Sparks at a very particular moment in the artists’ journey. Savvas reflects:
“The dynamic optical experience of this work coupled with its playful physical dimension and immersive luminous shooting rays of yellow wool invoked something primal and poetic within me, as though the sky were giving birth to a million suns. Traumatized and devastated as I was at the time by tragic news, I felt I had metaphysically flat-lined. I had become momentarily lost, and overwhelmed by the powerful and emblematic motif of an exploding Sun, a Sun without limits - a boundless experience that came to embody a deep cathartic release.”
During Sparks, the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) will be unveiling a newly commissioned work by Savvas, Rally (18 March - 22 June 2014). This large installation will be suspended above the ‘main street’ entrance court of the institution. Rally, (to publicly protest - and individually, to come back fighting) will be one of the largest works to have ever been installed at the AGNSW. With emersive colour and flickering movement, the work will comprise over 60,000 coloured plastic strips and be over 50m in length.
Nike Savvas’ extensive career has developed internationally in tandem with a continued presence in Australia. Recently Savvas held a solo exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery, Liberty and Anarchy (2012-2013) and released a monograph, Nike Savvas Full of Love Full of Wonder (Black Dog Publishing, London, 2012). Savvas has been included in group exhibitions in Europe, Australasia, the United States and Asia: notably the East International (Norwich, 2003), Visual Music (MoCA, Los Angeles 2005) and the Indian Triennale (New Delhi, 2005) where she won the Jury Prize. In 1998, Savvas’ work featured both in London’s New Contemporaries (Camden Arts Centre) and Sydney’s Primavera (MCA). Further awards include the Museum of Contemporary Art Primavera Acquisitive Art Award, ACT Creative Arts Fellowship and an Australia Council Fellowship. Savvas’ work is held in Australian and international collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Artbank Australia, Deutsche Bank, The British Library, Tate Gallery Library and Auckland Art Gallery. Savvas has completed major commissions, including the AGNSW (2014 forthcoming), NIKE Inc (Nike Town, San Francisco, 2013), the MCA, Sydney (2013), the Westin Hotel (2011) ACCA, Melbourne (2005) and Deutsche Bank (2005).
For all enquiries, please contact Annabel Holt at mail@arc1gallery.com