JAMES TAPSCOTT
RISING STAR OF
INTERNATIONAL LAND ART,
ANNOUNCES COMPLETION
OF A NEW PROJECT IN
SHENZHEN, CHINA
James Tapscott, the Melbourne-based Land & Light artist, is
delighted to announce completion of a new project in Shenzhen,
China, in association with Art Front Gallery and United Art
Projects.
Diaphanous Bloom is an abstracted tree, almost nine meters high,
constructed in polished stainless steel, which is softened and
buffeted by a hazy canopy of illuminated mist.
Completed early in 2018, Tapscott uses the mist as a medium
to delineate between man-made and natural elements. The city
of Shenzhen has sprung from a fishing village to a metropolis
of over 12 million people in a few short decades. Almost all
the vegetation has been placed there ‘artificially.’ Diaphanous
Bloom was commissioned for the new MixC development, which
is likewise carefully landscaped with greenery. “I wanted to
produce a work that shows the stark contrast between natural
and unnatural. The tree itself is abstracted – and then it erupts in
a mist, something that is purely natural, escaping to the wild.”
For him, working with mist is an interesting analogy of human
control over nature, and the mist acts as a ghostly reminder of
the Earth’s disappearing green spaces. By placing his artwork
at the end of a line of similar sized trees, Tapscott connects this
dialogue with the site.
The award-winning Tapscott is the founder-director of the
Globelight Festival in Australia, and has exhibited in galleries
and sculpture parks in Italy, Slovakia, Austria and California, in
addition to his native Australia. Born in Melbourne in 1980, he
studied Painting at Curtin University in Perth in the late 1990s.
Rarely using colour, Tapscott’s works stands out from the field
of artists working in Light, for being particularly concerned with
the ‘genius loci’, and for captivating narratives that emerge at the
littoral edge where land meets water and water meets light.
Tapscott is perhaps best known internationally for a 2017
installation at the Japan Alps Festival orchestrated by Fram
Kitagawa. There, in the forest, Tapscott’s ‘Arc Zero Nimbus’
established a magical presence in the trees. With this piece,
Tapscott seems to set out his ambitions for the future and his
vision of Land/Light art.
“I don’t like to impose my will on a place,” he said. “Beginning
a project with a soft set of parameters allows for real magic to
happen. I was delighted to be part of the Japan Alps festival and
fortunate to receive their wonderful support.”
Arc Zero is a 6-meter walk-through ring set over a wooden bridge in
a forest. Illuminated by two layers of soft LEDs, the ring is set with
nozzles which mist local river water like a halo, creating a magical
ever-changing play between light and liquid, and turning the
negative space of the ring into a diaphanous crystalline O.