Tomorrow, the DocNow Festival begins with an opening event hosted at the Gladstone Hotel. I will have a preview of my show during the opening as the gallery is adjacent to the hotel. The show runs for the month of June; see the gallery website for their hours of operation.
The installation was staged over 3 days. Last Thursday I painted, Saturday we installed the “grid” and today we install the LCD and projector for the videos, and configure the lighting. It’s been quite a process, but satisfying. The culmination of 2 years of work.
The Grid Installed
The gallery walls had been re-painted, and holes filled, after the last show completed. I was adding circles to the wall. I had a template cut describing a circle 42.8″ in diameter to facilitate the painting. It worked out quite well. I was worried about the paint bleeding under the edge of the template but that turned out not to be a problem. I suspect this had something to do with the thickness of the paint as well as tightly screwing the template to the wall.
The laser leveller was quite useful for establishing the horizontal and vertical lines, however I think it was the combination of uneven floors and my skills in this area, that prevented the achievement of perfection. The grid images are level, however, they are about 1/8″ too low.
The grid is made up of 36 tiles. I used velcro to attach them to the wall; nails would have been impossible. Using velcro offered some tolerance to reposition tiles after mounting. I first positioned the centre tile using the laser, then the remaining tiles were mounted relative to the first. A 1/8″ gap between each tile was set with a spacer (a piece of wood 1/8″ thick).
The tiles are made of metal with a gloss finish. I was worried that they would be too reflective, but that turns out not to be a problem.
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