Nike Savvas captures iconic visages of India’s landscape in a glass installation in Delhi, writes Shivangi Ambani-Gandhi When Australian artist Nike Savvas visited India for the first time in 2005, she could not sleep for the want of taking in the myriad experiences the country had to offer. “I went to Delhi for the 11th Triennale of India, where I won a Jury Prize for my work Zero to Infinity,” recollects Savvas. “I travelled around and completely fell in love with India. I was so excited with what I experienced and saw that I didn’t sleep very, much not wanting to waste time in absorbing the wonderment of this beautiful and amazing country. I never had a place or a culture affect me in this way before.”
Five years later, those experiences of India have found visual expression in two dreamy, colourful, glass installations that Savvas has created for the Westin Hotel in Delhi
Transfer Abstracts, which is being installed in the main foyer, is a suspension of myriad-coloured, streaming glass panels.
“The concept for Transfer Abstracts is driven by the interlinked notions of passing time, movement and travel,” says Savvas. “I endeavoured to capture a moment of this time through colour and implied movement, a split-second in which the diverse local landscape, both current and historical, is represented. It is as though the viewer of the artwork has travelled through and observed the Yamuna River and floodplains, the Aravalli mountain range and the orange sun that sets behind it, all in a moment. These three iconic visages of the Indian landscape will be blurred into one, resulting in a visual spectacle of movement and colour.”
Savvas’ colour palette for this work also draws extensively from the colours of the Indian landscape at sunrise and sunset. “The vivid reds, oranges and yellows are reminiscent of summer and significant markers of the beginning and end of a day,” explains Savvas. “The warm, saturated colour palette and sense of movement has a curatorial relevance to the clientele of the Westin as it conveys the passing of time and coming and going of people. Select panels of the work are accented with hues of cool blue and flashes of green that reference the Yamuna River and Aravalli mountain range.”
Her second artwork titled Sunstar is in the pre-function room and consists of a series of brilliant yellow glass beads arranged to imply gridlines of perspective.
As the viewer moves around the artwork the beads seem to shift, forming dynamic geometric patterns and optical illusions. The fine patterning of the grids reflects sunlight as well as the fine weaves of textile. Nine veils of intricate pattern are suspended, each adding a further layer of depth and detail.
“Sunstar compliments Transfer Abstracts—the two are interlinked by their connection to movement and motion, but differ wildly in execution and aesthetic,” says Savvas. “In the pre-function zone I have played with vanishing points and lines of perspective and motion, creating a stationary artwork that appears to move and shift with the viewer, encouraging them to travel around the space.”
Sunstar captures the strong visual created by rays, or veils, of sunlight, as well as the use of sundials in India. “As the day passes, light and shadow shift, emphasising or concealing various elements in a space. This movement of sunlight directly communicates the passing of time, harking back to ancient references of sundials and gnomons, such as the Samrat Yantra built by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II at Jaipur, India, in 1734.”
Savvas, who was commissioned for these artworks through Urban Art Projects (UAP), a public art & design consultancy, is excited about taking her artworks to India again. “It was wonderful to open my practice up to the Indian culture and location. I am excited to have engaged and influenced my work in this way and I see it as a rewarding development. It is also great to have my work viewed and experienced by an Indian audience,” says Nike.
For those who cannot make it to Delhi any time soon, Savvas’s latest exhibition titled Sliding Ladder is currently showing at the Breenspace Gallery in Sydney.
As an example of the variety of Savvas’ artistic influences, Sliding Ladder is named after an algebraic equation, x2/3 + y2/3 = L2/3, that gave rise to string art in the 1960’s and 70’s. “In this work, I reference optical art to address different perceptual modalities,” says Savvas.
This work looks like a macro version of the sliding ladder used by primary school kids to understand algebraic equations. Coloured strings are meticulously drawn and pinned across an entire room of Breenspace Gallery to translate the equation into geometric patterns and abstract forms. The process of creating the work, as well as experiencing it as a viewer, also has aspects of mysticism, contemplation and meditation.
As with Transfer Abstracts and Sunstar, Sliding Ladder is also an explosion of colour, with an emphasis on how those different colours interact with each other, and the visual stimulus they create. This experimentation of colour in space is very significant in Savvas’ practice. “I experiment with the full range of possibilities of how colour can be applied, investigating its symbolic, physical and psychological ramifications.”
Another continuing aspect in her artworks is the elaborate installation process and The Westin installation is definitely no exception. “The artwork in the main foyer is particularly challenging because of the scale of the glass panels – they are up to 2.7m long, and quite heavy,” explains Savvas. “This length means just handling them becomes more complicated. Several people from the Urban Art Projects install team are needed to hold and attach the cables for every single piece. With such a large quantity of panels hanging so close together and vertically interlinked this is a delicate and time consuming process!”
“Challenges faced for the installation of Sunstar are not quite as complicated. Here it is all about attention to detail and ensuring every glass sphere is very precisely located. If the installation of each sphere isn’t accurate, then the entire aesthetic is thrown out. When the pattern is absolutely dependant on grids, perspective and optical illusion it’s essential all the components are perfectly placed.
Savvas will not be present for the whole installation period, which will take several weeks. “I will be inspecting at a key point close to the completion of the install. This is a far more hands off approach than my usual installations, and is only possible because I have already investigated and resolved the details of the artwork with the UAP team.”
Savvas’ works have previously been criticised for being too simplistic—however, one can hardly call her Indian installations simplistic after understanding the range of sources of Indian landscape, history and culture that she reflects in her work.
One of her most well known Australian works, Atomic: full of love, full of wonder, which consisted of 50,000 coloured, foam balls, showed at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2006. This work was criticised for being “popular entertainment”.
Now that is hardly a comment that Savvas would take as a critique, if not a complement. After all, she believes that her work should engage with people outside the confines of an elitist gallery space. “Art should be for everyone and enjoyed by everyone. ‘Art for the People’—I suppose that is my motto.”
Nike Savvas’ Sliding Ladder will show at the Breenspace Gallery in Waterloo, Sydney.
Her installations at the Westin Hotel, Delhi should be installed in the next few weeks.
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