GROUP SHOW AT GALERIE BORCHARDT

The artist’s plastic recycling wall installation, “Shea’s Victoria XXIV”, is on view this summer. Bau Kunst! is a group show of eight artists at Galerie Borchardt and BAID Architektur in Hamburg, Germany, until September 29, 2023. Jan Kage curated the exhibition as part of the city-wide 2023 Hamburger Architektursommer. The artworks inspire social awareness about sustainable art practices. In addition, the festival promotes collaborations between artists and architects.

HISTORIC BLUEPRINT

It all started with the historic blueprint the artist found in the City of Toronto archives. This architectural drawing shows an interior detail of Shea’s Victoria. Charles James Reid designed the Beaux-Arts theatre in 1908 for vaudeville acts and the first silent films. His sketch depicts a classical harp and laurel motif, a symbol from ancient Greece used in the entertainment industry.

SHEA’S VICTORIA PUBLIC ART

The architectural blueprint formed the basis for her public artwork, “Shea’s Victoria”, at 25 Richmond Street East in Toronto. The renowned glass studio Mayer of Munich fabricated the large-scale hand-painted float glass windows. The windows contain three layers of hand-painted float glass lit from behind by LED panels. Their staggered repetitions of patterns reference the first “moving pictures”. Their luminous appearance is also a nod to film celluloid. The dynamism of this art glass comes from gestural flourishes that the artist frequently adds and deletes. She also uses wet glazes and wipes away linear drawings to reveal layers behind them. The close-up photo shows how the three panes of hand-painted float glass are each arranged 4 inches apart in depth. The images appear to move when the viewer walks, bicycles, or drives by the window.

BLUEPRINT PAINTINGS

A new series of acrylic paintings called “Blueprint” evolved from this project, including “Shea’s Victoria XXI red”. The images share a similar cinematic sensibility to her public art project. A riot of curving shapes and colour-saturated lines define them. Curves and forms that started as fragments of century-old motifs liquify into brilliant colour and light. Smaller paintings, such as “Shea’s Victoria XII (water)”, are also on view at the Galerie Borchardt.

PLASTIC RECYCLING WALL INSTALLATION

The painting series led to the artist’s plastic recycling wall installation, “Shea’s Victoria XXIV”, on view at Galerie Borchardt in Hamburg. The artwork uses only upcycled materials. This action protects the environment from further degradation and encourages citizens to set up recycling programs.

The artwork comprises hundreds of recycled vacuum forms and used cardboard packages. The local Toronto community and the artist collected discarded wrapping from cosmetics, electronics, toys, and chocolates. The use of surplus garbage on a large scale highlights the glut of plastic waste in our consumerist society. Moreover, single-use plastics have a severe long-term impact on our global community.

Harvey created the 9-by-6-foot wall installation in her studio. Subsequently, she disassembled the nine sections and shipped them to Hamburg.

Interestingly, she recreated the public art glass in a different material, recycled plastic. The artist strove to achieve the same three-dimensional multi-layered look. Ironically, the artist transformed upcycled materials to appear like glass.

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