Golden Hour

A Site Specific Installation

For Vivére, Melbourne

I’m interested in the interplay between the virtual and reality, whilst referencing the history of painting itself. I’m interested in pushing the boundaries of painting as we project towards the future, beyond a static frame.

The term golden hour refers to the window of time just prior to sunrise and sunset, when the ambient light is soft, casting golden tones across a landscape. Painting is inherently concerned with light and materiality. But when one paints digitally, they are painting with light. In his final show for Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld remarked that his process was “like walking in a painting.” This led me to think about what would it be like to walk through a digital painting? How could I capture the feeling of viewing a Melburnian spring sunrise and mesh that with the digital, to create a unique viewing experience?

I believe this has been achieved by focussing on light, materiality, colour and sound. The six works, suspended within the space via gold chains, draw on inspiration from the intersection of art, architecture, technology and fashion.

Each work has been produced by breaking the text code of images from fashion and then painted digitally to create floating landscapes. Each work floats within the space and reflects into infinity within the golden, mirrored hallway. The works could be read as image files floating within a digital cloud. The works are produced in Melbourne, the files sent to London, printed on Silk made in Japan and then transported back to Melbourne, augmenting the possibilities that the digital affords to our everyday lives. The golden panels reflect golden light, the viewer and each work into infinity, which changes dependent on the hour, the ambient light and also your position within the corridor. The rose gold panels lining the works represent the streak of pink that adorns the sky during a spring sunset. The perspex mirror also reflects the space and allows light to bounce within the corridor creating a feeling of lightness.

Sound is integral to the immersive experience of this installation. The sound component is the result of the data codes of the images, along with personal photographs of the golden light during sunset, being thread through a sound program. We have the merging of the real with the virtual. This creates a sound bath, a meditation on the space, encouraging one to look forward to the future. The sound oscillates but plays out a narrative of the sun rising, the earth awakening, a video projection played out in time-lapse, an awakening of the soul.

By navigating the space it was my ambition for the viewer to feel a floating sense of beauty, of timelessness, of desires obtained, of excitement to new possibilities, of relaxation and refuge and to step into the future. I wanted to capture that feeling as you look out into the bay as the sun rises and the world stirs, and back across the botanical gardens and into the bustle of the city, the movement of trams, the stirring of melburnians, but also refuge and solace in your piece of paradise in this globalised world.