Inspirations

Effects of refraction

Janet Echelman’s large-scale sculptures hang floating in the sky, rippling in the air. Made with sophisticated high-tech materials in neon colours, they play with effects of light and reverberation, criss-crossed by fishing net meshes and lace-like weaves. This is echoed in the textures and colours of the Creative Collection Chapter XI.

Interplays of light, vibration, and refraction, transparent effects and fluidity of movement are the hallmarks of Janet Echelman's creations.

The American artist works with the sun, wind and the colours of the light spectrum to create dreamlike structures that have inspired some of the patterns in the Creative Collection Chapter XI, with such evocative names as Soleil, Echoes, Luce, Hybrid and Lucid Dream.

Glamora Diary Inspirations Janet Echelman — Courtesy Studio Echelman. Photo by Joao Ferrand.

Echelman's floating works grace the squares, ports, bridges and piers of some of the world’s biggest cities, from Beijing to London, from Santiago to Hong Kong, across Asia, Europe and the Americas.

The gaze is drawn to the constant motion of these large-scale creations, designed for public spaces regularly frequented by the residents of the cities.

Her work defies categorisation, incorporating as it does such diverse topics as sculpture, architecture, urban design, structural and aeronautical engineering, material science and information technology.

A dream weaver, the artist uses unlikely materials, from atomised water particles to fibres engineered to be fifteen times stronger than steel, to create site-specific installations with a striking ethereal appearance.

Her airy sculptures combine the ancient traditional craft of weaving and knotting the nets, learnt in an Indian fishing village, with highly technologically advanced software.

Her works are ever-changing constructions in the air; transformed by the wind and the light, they change from “an object to be looked at, to an experience in which to lose yourself”. At night they trace fleeting dances in the dark, like apparitions in the neon colours of the Aurora Borealis. Because, as Janet Echelman herself says, “The sky is the canvas for my works”.