Canadian Artist Invited to creative unique ice painting at 2006 Winter Olympics
Added: (Thu Jan 05 2006)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
December 21st , 2005 - Canadian artist Gordon Halloran, creator of the Ice Painting will take Canada to the world with his ice art installation Pitture Sotto Zero to the XX Olympic Winter Games as the only Canadian visual artist invited by the Turin Olympic Committee to be in the official line up of the 2006 Cultural Olympiad in Italy.
Paintings Below Zero, a collection of abstract paintings in ice, will be featured as a special “Homage to Canada” as the next host of the Olympic Winter Games. The Fortezza di Fenestrelle, the largest military fort in Europe, located in the mountains outside Turin, is slated to host Halloran and his huge, icy, colourful paintings. The 450 year-old fortress where Halloran’s work will be showcased, stretches across the mountain top for 3.5 kilometres and is the symbol of the people and the Province of Torino. The artist's work will be featured solo as the only Olympic event at the site. Halloran’s works will stretch across floors, up walls, and in the windows of the ancient church on the site. The entire Chiesa will be brought to below freezing to accommodate the artwork. This kind of installation -- the location, the art form -- has never been tried before. January 28, 2006 is the date for the opening.
The exhibit, Pitture Sotto Zero/Paintings Below Zero, takes its inspiration from the Canadian winter landscape, and the artist’s experience playing hockey as a boy on homemade, backyard ice rinks.
In August of 2004, Halloran received the official invitation from the Turin Olympic Committee to create ice paintings for an audience of thousands who attend the Olympic games. What's an artist doing at the Olympics? Halloran is creating an installation in an old church situated on the top of a hill in the heart of the Olympic valley outside Turin. He's one of less than twenty artists (and the only one from North America) featured as part of the official line up of the Cultural Olympiad. The location, La Fortezza di Fenestrelle, is the largest military fort in Europe and a symbol of the region of Piemonte. Halloran invented this art form in the early nineties, which uses a variety of innovations with paint at the freezing point of water. His art in ice has in the past been exhibited in ice arenas and is inspired by the Canadian landscape of ice and snow.
This new art form (dubbed “the quintessential Canadian art form” by The Globe & Mail"), blends color, composition and new technological processes developed in Canada into a showcase of the imaginative energy of Canadian art.
Paintings Below Zero/ Pitture Sotto Zero opens at Fortezza di Fenestrelle, in Valle Chisone, near Torino, Piemonte, Italy on January 28.
Visit:
www.paintingsbelowzero.com
www.icepaintingproject.com
Contact the artist through the web site to arrange an interview in Italy or over the phone or to receive an invitation to the Opening Ceremonies in Turin, Italy.
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