Te Papa’s Toi Art opens multi-sensory, kinetic installation
A new immersive art exhibition has opened at Te Papa. The installation, Finale: Bouquet, by Australian artist Nike Savvas is a major new site specific commission for the Toi Art Threshold Gallery on Level 4.
A new immersive art exhibition has opened at Te Papa. The installation, Finale: Bouquet, by Australian artist Nike Savvas is a major new site specific commission for the Toi Art Threshold Gallery on Level 4.
The installation measures 18.9m x 8.7m, and appears like an explosion of confetti. Thousands of colourful tabs are suspended mid-flight creating a festival of colour and movement.
A visitor trying to capture the scale of Finale: Bouquet, 2019. Photo by Jack Fisher. Te Papa
Te Papa Head of Art Charlotte Davy says Savvas is an exciting artist whose works have been exhibited in institutions such as London’s Southbank Centre, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney.
“Savvas’ ability to command space is remarkable. Finale: Bouquet is an immersive, colourful and optically dazzling art experience.”
“The installation will have an incredible emotional impact on visitors, who will feel almost immersed in scattered confetti,” she says.
Artist Nike Savvas says she seeks to create experiential objects and environments in her work.
“I wish to captivate, transform, and transport the viewer with this immense multi-sensory, kinetic installation.”
Savvas was inspired by the colours of the New Zealand landscape when creating Finale: Bouquet.
“Everyone is affected by colour—immediately, and profoundly. In this respect, it is the viewer’s participation and activation that, for me, completes the work.”
Finale: Bouquet is open on Level 4 of Toi Art. Exhibition entry to Toi Art is free. The exhibition closes on 12 January 2020.
Ends…
Notes to Editors
About Nike Savvas and Finale: Bouquet
Contemporary Australian artist Nike Savvas was born in Sydney in 1964 and is of Greek-Cypriot heritage. She has years of experience working to large-scale in complex places and in public spaces, and has delivered large scale installations for numerous galleries and public spaces in Australia and internationally.
Often large-scale and immersive, the physical and sensory experience of her work are a key facet of her practice. Through her work she seeks to “create experiential objects and environments to captivate, transform, and transport the viewer” and sees the use of colour in her work as key in ensuring that the experience of her work remains ‘open, subjective, democratic, and immersive’.
Te Papa Head of Art Charlotte Davy says “we are delighted that Nike Savvas has enabled us to bring this extravagant, immersive work to life at Te Papa where it will be enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders for many years to come,” she says.
Artist Nike Savvas says she admires the multicultural mix in Toi Art.
“Te Papa is an egalitarian institution and I am incredibly fond of the art gallery, Toi Art.”
“Te Papa is a wonderful institution. It is expansive, inclusive, outward looking and egalitarian in its scope and vision. I am incredibly fond of the art gallery, Toi Art. I offered Finale: Bouquet (a seminal work) to Toi Art in the hope that the spirit and virtues of this work will resonate and contribute in some meaningful way to this wonderful gallery’s defining early years.”
Finale: Bouquet is made up of over 210,000 plastic tabs which are fully recyclable. The work is an acquisition and will remain in Te Papa’s collection permanently.
Media contact
Ellie Campbell, Senior Communications Advisor, 029 601 0120, ellie.campbell@tepapa.govt.nz