13 Feb 2014

STRIDING TIGERS

A recent project...

Striding Tigers is a relief sculpture which runs both sides of the Victoria Street, Richmond railway bridge. The large-scale sculpture of two dynamic tigers stepping through bamboo is part of the Yarra City Council's Victoria Street Gateway Project, which is officially launched in March. At approximately 22m x 2.3m per side, with over one thousand custom-made components, the project has been a major undertaking for Stephen Hennessy Art & Design occupying most of 2013.  

Project architects: Gregory Burgess Architects.

Special thanks to: Glass Metal Industries, McKinna Sheetmetal, D & M Auto Industrial Spray Painting.

Stephen Hennessy Art & Design ©
Stephen Hennessy Art & Design ©
Stephen Hennessy Art & Design ©
Stephen Hennessy Art & Design ©
Stephen Hennessy Art & Design ©
Stephen Hennessy Art & Design ©

13 Jan 2014

SHAD TABLE LIGHT (Di Stasio) c1988

Featured in a recent article on Cafe de Stasio and cover of Artichoke... a table lamp designed by SHAD for the cafe circa 1988.



20 Dec 2013

WEDDING DANCE

from a series of photographs...


  Stephen Hennessy ©

BLAIRGOWRIE PAPERWORK

Poignant and abstract. Casual groupings poised to take a jump into a cooling rock pool below or climb spiky rocks to gain higher ground. Kids and adults frown in the burning light and lose their edges in the sprayed over terrain. What interested here was the tenuous foothold and the raised arms of climbers trying to balance. Classic contraposto poses mixed with outdoor family tableaux. The soft edge haze of these images is now a signature atmosphere rendering figures as icons rather than fixed identities. As people enact the beach ritual of climbing and jumping I think of Mantegna’s shallow space friezes. The open sky becomes a mural with actors, there as a backdrop for all who pass through it.


Stephen Hennessy © 2012
Stephen Hennessy © 2012

4 Dec 2013

EVERY PICTURE SCULPTURE

Works in the Every Picture Sculpture series find something in photography and make something out of it. Every picture could tell a story but for me every picture talks sculpture. I make something from what is striking in the photograph, add or embellish a hint or murmur and turn it into a production number. 

Each work is built around something inherent and compelling about the photograph. That something keys into memory, seizes an opportunity or recognition and takes the photographic subject or element back into three-dimensional space. As wall-mounted sculpture they are folded, box like or shelf shaped; protrusions or reliefs coming off the wall, photographs wrapped around forms. 

Photography and sculpture work hard in their juxtaposition; sometimes denying the autonomy of one over the other, often supporting add-ons which are tactile mementos meant to be handled. What emerges from this reworking is a form that privileges neither photography nor sculpture. The works are assemblages, like early 20th century artworks, and relate to Dada objects in their uncanny and often blunt opposition of signs. There is a loop from photographing, viewing, making the sculpture only to be returned to the photograph. 


Stephen Hennessy ©
Lost Cat, Stephen Hennessy © 2009

12 Jun 2013

THIRD AWARD FOR SHAD-LC-O1 CHANDELIER

This month we received the Illuminating Engineering Society (IESANZ) International award for the Light of Lights: Lighting Product of Year. Designed for the Lobby of the Crown Towers Hotel, Melbourne it was a complicated lightfitting to design but one which seems to have struck a chord with a lot of people. 

Project architects: Bates Smart.
 

15 Apr 2013

SONG, RANTERS THEATRE

A recent project... 

Lighting design and the design & fabrication of a large Solar/Lunar disc for SONG, a collaboration between Ranters Theatre, artist Laura Lima & musician James Tyson, presented at Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall. Another smaller version of the disc is planned for the re-staging of the performance at the Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff in 2014.

18 Mar 2013

PAPER AND AIR

The 'PUFF' series continues a group of artworks based on paper construction. Formatted and folded into paper sculpture the airscapes are picture bags with both ends open like an empty slipcase with a thin façade. There is a sense air passing through like a slipstream or displacement. 

Using the same block form for each piece suggests a horizontal column of air linking the series. The surface functions as an excerpt; a cut out of sky, like holding up a fragment of a Tiepolo painting or a picture postcard. The 'Puffs' stand on a mantelpiece or hang on a wall as romantic fragments, firm in construction but as fragile as a paper bag and a puff of air.



Stephen Hennessy © 2012

13 Mar 2013

NEW AWARD FOR SHAD LC-01 CHANDELIER

This month SHAD attended the inaugural INFINITY Awards for Lighting Design in Sydney. A panel of 18 international judges judged around 100 projects. It's the first in a series of events 'celebrating best practice, big ideas and the infinite creativity within the lighting design industry'. SHAD's LC-01 Chandelier was nominated in the Luminaire category and picked up a Bronze Infinity Award, which is the 2nd award for this large-scale SHAD lightfitting. 

Further presentations will be made in Singapore and New York to international nominees. It was good to be involved in this successful event and to see lighting creativity recognised in this way. Congratulations to Tariq Qayoom and team, and other award recipients and nominees.
 
http://www.indesignlive.com/articles/in-review/infinity-awards-2013-sydney#ixzz2NOZxjPSS 



29 Oct 2012

CELEBRITY ABSTRACT




Stephen Hennessy ©