VESSEL

Vessel was designed to defy the categories of typology and use. It was conceived to simultaneously be both a piece of furniture and a sculpture, a seat and a light source. The form was derived by the consideration of folded plate structures and the potential development of curvilinear shapes through the composition of flat panels. The resulting shape was created by the intersection of two overlapping arcs which were traversed by gently twisting vertical side planes, bringing to mind the graceful hull of a ship.

The piece was made from green tinged transparent fibreglass impregnated with metallic dust. The diffraction of ultraviolet and red fluorescent lights off the metallic dust particles within the piece’s shell, produced an ethereal glow, that engulfed the work as a tangible cloud-like haze and create an indistinct boundary between materiality and phenomena. This experience of colour, opacity, density and immateriality shifted and changed across the surface of the piece as one viewed it from different angles.

The piece was exhibited at Span galleries in Flinders Lane Melbourne, in this setting it was found that the Vessel responded to ambient light conditions in a curious way, subtly shifing its appearance from a steellike sheen of metallic opacity when illuminated by the gallery’s overhead skylights during the day to glowing with shades of phosphorescent pink, purple, blue and a dazzling white as the ambient light shifted from day to night.