The Lucida New York

Based Upon/Central Park was commissioned by Extell Development Corporation and S Russell Groves as the feature artwork for the lobby of its landmark development- the Lucida on Lexington and 85th, New York City. The Lucida piece created by working within by Central Park, onto which the building looks. Our initial idea was to play with the linearity evident in the city of New York as one stands in Central Park and looks though the trees to the rising buildings behind. On our visits to the Park, we made photographic studies of the linearity and it is from these photographic documents that we composed the piece. The work also reflects the four seasons, familiar to any friend of Hyde Park. There are some special landscapes on our planet that can express all four seasons on a single day and Central Park is one of those. We experienced all four seasons in a single weekend in January when we visited the park. The four seaons are expressed in the final work in gentle fading tones of metal, working from platinum hues to antique gold. Each mark within the final 6.6 metres by 2.3 metres piece can be traced back to the park. We collected many casts, moulding from drumlin rocks, carved graffiti, the splits in benches as well as the parks numererous species of trees and their leaves. The casts became a palette back in our studio when they were layered within metal or encapsulated within resin to define the essence of the park through its textural landscape.