Public Art Program: Selected proposals
Symbols, Systems & Proportions
Artist: Erwin Redl
Medium: Hanging sculpture with LED lights
Dimensions: 28-feet 8½-inches wide, 21-feet 3¼-inches high and 3-feet 5¼-inches deep
Art location: Rental car center, north escalator core
The art & the artist: The light installation “Symbols, Systems & Proportions” is a hanging sculpture that consists of three curtains of 81 programmable light panels. Each light panel displays a symbol or a pictogram commonly found at Tampa International Airport, such as an image of a plane, telephone or escalator. The images were adopted from the sign design manual that all airports around the world use to communicate with passengers. There will be a total of 27 different symbols displayed on 243 stained glass panels. Redl is famous for incorporating hanging sculptures that shift perception based on where people are moving. In this piece, the hanging panels with the LED lighting will maneuver in an animated fashion. Depending on the time of day, the sculpture will have a stained-glass effect, filtering and transforming the sunlight streaming in through nearby windows. Even in broad daylight, the power of these LED lights will captivate in vivid, bold colors that passengers will be able to see and enjoy while transiting down escalators to their rental car. Redl, born in Austria, is now based in New York and Bowling Green, Ohio.
Visit the artist's website
Palimpsest
Artists: Nick Cave and Bob Faust
Medium: Hanging sculpture with beads
Dimensions: 30-feet wide, 20-feet high, 1-inch deep
Art location: Rental car center, south escalator core
The art & the artists: Chicago-based artists Nick Cave and Bob Faust have designed a contemporary dimensional tapestry made primarily of beads. The title of this piece refers to something that has been reused but still bears visible traces of its earlier form – picture a graffiti-covered wall where each new image builds on top of earlier work but doesn’t totally replace it. The hanging sculpture is a contemporary palimpsest focusing on the themes of travel to understanding, creating a web of humanity and also the creation of future memories through the travel process. The pattern they are reflecting in their particular piece is “home free.” That’s fitting given its location in the rental car center, greeting passengers who have just arrived back at TPA and are returning their cars. Cave and Faust are world-renowned artists. Previous works include the Lights on Tampa installation and work for the United States Embassy in Dakar.
Visit the artists' websites Nick Cave and Bob Faust
Greetings from Tampa Bay
Artist: Sheryl Oring
Medium: Sculpture/performance art
Dimensions: Two arch sculptures – each are 13-feet wide by 10-feet tall.
Art location: SkyConnect station at the Economy Garage
The art & the artists: Greetings from Tampa Bay is a two-phased public artwork. It begins with a performance-based, socially engaged work in which Tampa Bay residents are invited to share stories and memories about their cities. In the second phase, hand-typed stories and photos – both contemporary and historical – will then be printed on aluminum and form the material for the sculptures. Oring, of Greensboro, S.C., will put on three performances to capture these opportunities. Oring is well known for her examination of critical social issues through projects that incorporate old and new media. In 2013, she created “Travel Desk” for San Diego International Airport. For that performance, typists dressed in 1960s-era flight attendant uniforms and took down peoples’ stories.
Visit the artist's website
n + 1
ArtistRalph Helmick
Medium: Hanging sculpture
Dimensions: 13-feet 9-inches, maximum width 25-feet, maximum depth 20-feet
Art location: SkyConnect station at the Main Terminal
The art & the artist: n + 1 is a dramatic two-part sculpture. It will be suspended above eye level over an opening to the third floor and consists of a ten-foot-wide primary sculpture of a large opalescent ivory-white leatherback sea turtle. Suspended above that primary sculpture, hundreds of fine cables will hold over a thousand small sculptures of turtle hatchlings that collectively coalesce into a particulate twenty-five-foot wide adult turtle, identical in shape and morphology to the sea turtle below. Viewed from below, where many passengers will see it, the sculpture will almost look as if it is gliding through the air. Helmick is a world-recognized sculpture artist inspired by the connection between wildlife and humans.
visit the artist's website.
Tendril
Artist: Daniel Canogar
Medium: LED hanging sculpture
Dimensions: 35-feet by 41 feet by 12 feet
Art location: Airside F, near TSA security
The art & the artist: Tendril is a hanging sculpture made of ribbon-shaped metal strips and LED screens that coil around the trusses of Airside F’s central space. The flexible LED screens will display time-lapse video animations showing the growth of Tampa Bay’s native flora, evoking the image of native vines curling around a trellis. The installation is a continuation of the artist’s fascination with “representations of ruins that depict nature reabsorbing what was built by humans.” Daniel Canogar, based in New York, is a visual artist specializing in photography and video, and creating new media installations. He’s always wanted to make artwork for an airport. “Got my wish,” he said.
Visit the artist's website
Verdant Tampa Bay
Artist: Elisabeth Condon
Medium: Mixed-media painting
Dimensions: 8-feet by 8-feet
Art Location: Airside F – international arrivals hall
This mixed media landscape painting will combine the literal and the abstract using pours, abstract gestures, representational drawings, traces and collage elements to depict the Tampa Bay region. The painting will balance external views of the landscape with an internalized version that is inviting and restorative. Elisabeth Condon is based in Tampa with an office in Brooklyn, NY. A former tenured instructor at the University of South Florida, she left her position to take on creating art full time
Visit the artist's website.