Waves
Waves
By Nicolas Sassoon
Photo: Scott Massey
Nicolas Sassoon’s design for the northeast window at the Yaletown-Roundhouse Station is part of a larger body of work for which the artist is producing a collection of Moiré patterns – a visual effect inadvertently discovered by Swiss photographer Ernst Moiré in the late 1800s. The optical phenomenon is created by overlapping two different images to generate a ‘third plane’ causing the eye to see movement where there is none.
This new commission is formed by the layering of a multi-coloured pixelated background, which is placed behind a symmetrical pattern of vertical, curved black lines. With no central focal point the graphic mural is activated by the movement of the viewer. Sassoon’s patterns are tied to the landscape and their vibrating effect evocative of elements found in nature, a field of raking grass, clouds sweeping across an otherwise clear sky, the diagonal cascade of a torrential rain or the soft waves of a calm ocean.
Nicolas Sassoon was born in Marseille, France in 1981 and is currently based in Vancouver. His work has been exhibited internationally at Axiom Centre for New and Experimental Media, Boston, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, and Portland Art Museum, and locally at the Charles H. Scott Gallery, Centre A, and the New Forms Festival.
Presented by the Contemporary Art Gallery in partnership with Canada Line Public Art Program – IntransitBC.
Contemporary Art Gallery, 555 Nelson Street, Vancouver BC V6B 6R5
Removed: January 23rd, 2013
