A piece of the Sunshine Coast is gaining critical acclaim in Chicago, Illinois. Sunshine Coast artist Gord Halloran's work is the focal point of the Museum of Modern Ice winter celebration in Chicago's Millennium Park Feb. 1 to 29.
By combining colour and light with the ever-changing nature of ice, Halloran, along with a team of volunteers and supporters, is creating an engaging visual spectacle in Millennium Park, one of Chicago's most popular public spaces. Composed of multiple panels of vividly coloured vertical ice sheets, the monumental ice wall is enormous in scale, yet intricate in detail, created by pigments interacting with the crystal structure of the ice. The creation is inspired by a glacial wall in its final stages of movement towards the ocean, and the installation will evolve over time with natural and planned changes, encouraging visitors to return frequently to observe the activity.
The brilliantly-coloured wall (32 metres long and nearly four metres tall) marks the U.S. début of Halloran's innovative work and is also his largest and most spectacular piece of work to date.
To complement the majestic structure, Hallo-ran will also embed an abstract ice painting within Millennium Park's McCormick Tribute ice rink, allowing the viewing public to skate on the multi-coloured surface.
In 2004 Halloran was selected to create an installation for the Cultural Olympiad of the 2006 Turin Olympic Winter Games. With his colourful paintings in ice, Paintings Below Zero, Halloran transformed the floors, walls and corridors of a massive deconsecrated church into a palace of reflection and art. Last year he created two large public installations, one as the centrepiece of Toronto's WinterCity Festival, the other at the Shaw Festival Theatre in Niagra-on-the-Lake. It was the WinterCity Festival creation that caught the eyes of art enthusiasts from Chicago.
"The people from the Museum of Modern Ice came up with the idea based on the work after seeing the Toronto project," said Halloran in a phone interview with Coast Reporter on Monday. "They saw something about the work that they found very special and asked me what I thought about coming to Chicago. I went down there in the spring to scout the location, and the site in Millennium Park is just fabulous - stunning, really. The site seemed like a great match-up, and I came up with the concept of the wall."
Since that initial visit, Halloran has visited Chicago three times with the final visit in mid-December where he began preparations for the exhibition.
"It's been basically working non-stop for over a month now," said Halloran. "We have 10 people working on the crew including Tim Furness and my son Jaz who both are graduates of Elphinstone Secondary School. We also have another local Sunshine Coast artist, River Rohlicek, who is also here, as well as some others from Vancouver, Victoria and Calgary. The crew is huge when you also factor in the people working here from Chicago who are handling things like communications and public relations."
On Monday when Coast Reporter spoke to Halloran, the crew was in the final stages of moving pieces from their large staging workshop to Millennium Park.
"We seem to be right on schedule, but weather can play a big factor," Halloran said. "Each new phase has its own challenges. It's quite a move from the cold storage to the actual site itself."
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley recently visited Halloran and the crew at their workshop and was impressed with what he saw.
"Chicago is well-known for offering rich cultural resources, and Gordon Halloran's groundbreaking work supports our long-standing commitment to bringing world-class art to this city," said Daley in a press release. "Chicago is proud to be the first city in the United States to present Paintings Below Zero, which is a must-see exhibition for both residents and visitors this winter."
Halloran said with 10 days to go before the unveiling and start of the month-long exhibition, the real work is still ahead of them.
"Everyone involved with the project is quite excited, but now the real test is when they start to see it in the context of the wall and the lighting," he said. "It's been a huge undertaking, and it's been a truly amazing experience for all of us. The nature of this city is like the centre of America for me. Chicago has a flare for public art and for cultural projects in general. It's an amazing city to be working in."
For more about the project, see www.museumofmodernice.com.
