Reception desk artworks by artist Gianna Stewart with Sunne Savage Gallery greet patients and families checking into the Hale Building at Boston Children’s Hospital.
The artworks take the theme of the floor they are on – Harbor, Transportation, Forest, Lake, Mountain, Space, Nest - and create a patient-level window to an illuminated world with numerous details to seek and find. Each work is 3” deep, comprised of 24 layers of pressure cast resin. Between the layers are handmade polymer clay sculptures, found and natural objects, acrylic paintings, suspended pigments, glitters, and dyes. Look, seek, find, and discover the countless details in these layered scenes.
Photographs by Amanda Garza, courtesy Sunne Savage Gallery
Installed for the 2019 Underwater Museum of Art
As one approaches the work from above, geometric lines appear- an x and three flanges. These could be seen as cardinal directions, or the 12, 3, 6, and 9, and the hour, minute, and second hands on clock. Whatever the approaching scuba diver reads into the image, it’s clearly manmade, geometric, out of place in the organic undulating forms of the ocean. The tension between natural and built world is evident as one approaches and finds the work is a series of doorframes - Four door frames, with doors at various stages of opening or closing.
One door is slightly ajar, another wide open. An open door is an invitation to enter or exit; a closed door is a challenge. A series of doors is a decision, which one to pass through if any. A door to the future, a door to the past…
The work may conjure up images of Atlantis, or a flooded city. A door is out of place in an environment of boundless space, unbound by walls or imposing architecture. This series of doors, of decisions submerges among marine life that may wander about this unnecessary architecture. Useless, these doors will be forever stuck in various states of ajar, surrounded by nothing but ocean.
Above Images Courtesy: Spring Run Media
The UMA is created by the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County (CAA) in partnership with Visit South Walton, South Walton Artificial Reef Association (SWARA) and with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Alys Foundation, and Visit Florida.
Special thanks to
Balram Chamaria at B+AC LLC for engineering consultation
Nash Golon
Peter Hilton
And to Maureen Hilton, Andrew Russell, & Michael Talbot for heavy lifting.
Iceberg A68 broke away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica July, 2017. Since then maps have had to be redrawn of the peninsula. As A68 slowly makes its way into open waters, scientists are carefully charting its movements. It is one of the largest Icebergs ever recorded. Gianna Stewart’s Iceberg was placed in the Fort Point Channel fall 2017 in response to these current events. The installation remained on view through April 2018. The fictitious bergy bits were an ode to A68 and our changing world.
Iceberg, Gianna Stewart
Materials: EPS foam, boat resin, uv pigment, pvc, marine hardware
Scale: approximately 17’ x 13’ x 9’ and 15’ x 5’ x 5’
The fictitious Iceberg was an ode to Iceberg A68 and our changing world.
Iceberg by Gianna Stewart remained on view through April 2018.
It was an ode to our changing world.
Iceberg, an FPAC Floating Public Art project, was funded by the Fort Point Channel Operations Board.
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Special Thanks to:
Michael DeKoster, Boston Rowing Center
Emily O’Neil, Fort Point Arts Community
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Assistants:
Michael Talbot
Tori Reimann
Ulana Ainsworth
Robert Gilliam
Jenny D
Ariel Grubb
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Ed McCabe, Boston Rowing Center
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Invasive Maple trees distribute their seeds via a winged nut known as a samara. These small specimens float through the air, spinning to the ground. Samaras consists of oversized samaras suspended in midair, cast in transparent plastic that catch the sunlight as they gently spin overhead Battery Whitman on Peddocks Island in the Boston Harbor.
This project was a part of the juried show Boston Harbor [RE]CREATION organized by Boston Harbor Now with Carolyn Lewenberg
Sign for park visitors read:
Battery Whitman was designed to send destructive forces whirling through the air, with just the quick tug of a long lanyard. What was the site of explosive force is now a quiet, windless place.
Look up. Samaras are growing in the invasive Norway Maples species all around the island. Here the damaging seeds lie in wait to be released in flight in the fall, invading the island.
Time seems suspended. Just as the samaras take flight, there is a moment when they pause in the air, spinning on the slightest wind. Here is that moment of suspension, after a destructive seed has been released, and before its force is felt in a world where it does not belong.
Magical Amass, Gianna Stewart
Artist Statement
Bonnaroo creates a city of travelers from all over, meeting for a moment under a common love of music and people. Many stay in tents, each unique, each all the shelter one needs for the festival.
In Magical Amass translucent tents shimmer in the sunlight, amassing into the form of one large tent.
The suspended sculpture’s form echoes the opening of the skylight. The cast plastic tents have a glass-like appearance, each with a slightly different hue. Their subtle differences amass into a greater gesture overhead as one passes through the airport. Much like the experience of becoming part of the bigger vibe at Bonnaroo, each tent is made greater as part of a larger whole.
Location:
Nashville International Airport, Nashville, TN
Medium:
122 hand cast plastic tents in varying hues, monofilament, steel, aluminum, hardware
Scale:
122 tents, each approximately 7” x 10” x 5”
Commissioned By:
Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival / Bonnaroo Works Fund / Arts at the Airport
Bonnaroo creates a city of travelers from all over, meeting for a moment under a common love of music and people. Many stay in tents, each unique, each all the shelter one needs for the festival.
In Magical Amass translucent tents shimmer in the sunlight, amassing into the form of one large tent.
122 cast plastic tents, each with a slightly different hue amass into the shape of a larger tent overhead.
Magical Amass was one of five 2017 skylight installations on view in the Nashville International Airport made possible by Arts at the Airport, and the Bonnaroo Works Fund.
Photography:
Bruce Cain, Elevated Lens Photography
Arts Administrator:
Mary Grissim, Curator, Arts at the Airport
Install Team:
Duncan McDaniel & Art Up Nashville
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Special Thanks To:
Peter Hilton & Glenn Hilton
Capturing The Sunrise. Video Installation. 8Nights8Windows. December 2015.
Capturing The Sunrise. Video Still. Limited Edition Print. 2015
Capturing The Sunrise was a video installation for 8Nights8Windows. For eights nights, just after sunset, sunrises were projected onto the window of Cambridge Trust Company, Tremont Street, Boston.
As the sun rose, the horizon slowly spun clockwise.
Midden, Gianna Stewart
Materials:
casted clear urethane resin, painted steel, solar LED lighting
Scale:
a dozen oyster shells each approximately 4.5’ x 3’ x 1’
Artist Statement
Midden: A pile of refuse, chiefly containing shells
When The Big Dig was underway in Boston, several midden were unearthed. The ancient trash heaps revealed much about those who roamed these sites before us. Often the shells grew larger towards the bottom of the piles, artifacts from before oysters were harvested as abundantly. Left alone, an oyster never stops growing.
These dozen oysters of mythical proportions beg the question- what will we leave behind?
Oysters are the water’s natural filters. Here, Midden rests below the air intake shaft for the I-93 tunnel below, pulsing colored light, as if breathing, as the wave of night passes over them.
About THE LOCAL on The Greenway
“THE LOCAL” was a request for artwork proposals from locally-based Massachusetts artists. The Greenway selected two artists to situate site-specific artworks for 6-12 months beginning in spring 2016 that will collectively, physically, and/or experientially unite the segmented parks and connect the communities along the park system. The Greenway is dedicated to collaborating with Boston, Greater Boston and the Commonwealth’s creative communities to present public art that enhances our city’s imaginative capacity, enlivens our neighborhoods, contributes to economic vitality, spark civic exchange, and enhances community connection.
Midden: A pile of refuse, chiefly containing shells
When The Big Dig was underway in Boston, several midden were unearthed. The ancient trash heaps revealed much about those who roamed these sites before us. Often the shells grew larger towards the bottom of the piles, artifacts from before oysters were harvested as abundantly. Left alone, an oyster never stops growing.
These dozen oysters of mythical proportions beg the question- what will we leave behind?
Special Thanks To:
Greenway Public Art Curator:
Lucas Cowan
Greenway Staff Especially:
Melissa Henry, Curatorial Assistant
Tom Ball, Maintenance Foreman
Volunteers:
Ulana Ainsworth
Victoria Reimann
Christina Stewart
Peter Hilton
Glenn Hilton
Metal Bases:
Dan Kendall, Sincere Metal Works
Material Consult:
Caroline Politi, Reynolds Advanced Materials
Photography by:
Ladder to Fruitlands. Gianna Stewart. 2015.
Ladder to Fruitlands is a simple gesture, nodding to the Fruitlands Experiment of 1843-44 in the very farmhouse it overlooks. When visiting, and reading up about the place, I was struck by this search for utopia through the land- full of lofty ideas, but with no real physical means to get there.
Ladder to Fruitlands. Gianna Stewart. 2015.
Spending some time at the site, you may just see a freight pass behind the farmhouse.
Site: Overlooking the Fruitlands Farmhouse where the Transcendentalist Fruitlands Experiment took place in 1843.
The Fruitlands Museum, Harvard, MA
Ladder to Fruitlands is made from painted steel. 6' 5"height x 2' 8" width at base which recedes to 3" width at top. 8' long steel rails lean at a 51 degree angle over the landscape towards the farmhouse.
Steel Fabrication: Dan Kendall
Special thanks to Nash Golon for structural advice.
Ladder to Fruitlands is part of the Art in Nature show juried by Curator of Collections Michael Volmar, Murray Dewart, of the Boston Sculptors Gallery, and Harvard artist Linda Hoffman at the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA.
Toll With Me is comprised of 8,500 bells. They hang in an undulating form along nearly 100ft of fence on A Street in Fort Point, Boston. Their light sound is activated by the wind or the trailing hand of a passerby.
Toll With Me was made possible by FPAC Spring Open Studios and generous support from a grant from The South Boston Community Development Foundation.
For more on the Fort Point Arts Community visit: http://www.fortpointarts.org
Each bell hung from a single jump in the opening of a chain link fence.
Toll With Me was installed May 2015 for FPAC Spring Open Studios. The community was invited to help hang bells throughout installation and Open Studios.
Special thank you to bell hangers:
Sue Johnson
Amy Heavisides
Peter Hilton
Photo credits: Toshiki Yashiro & Gianna Stewart. 2015
Toll With Me was comprised of 8,500 bells. They hung in an undulating form along nearly 100ft of fence on A Street in Fort Point, Boston. Their light sound was activated by the wind or the trailing hand of a passerby.
