Title

Ornamentum

Artist

Nizam, James

Date

2020

Medium

steel

aluminum

Type

sculpture

Dimensions

609.6cm height x 457.2cm width x 203.2cm depth

Accession Number

NA

Category

Private Development Public Art

Collection

Public Art

Lat/Long

49.263101,-122.997853

View in Google Maps

http://www.google.com/maps?q=49.263101,-122.997853

Ornamentum envisions a public artwork inspired by the ornamentation of the wrought iron railings found in the older Brentwood neighbourhood that surrounds the public art site. The work identifies and pays homage to Burnaby’s architectural heritage, carried forward via a dynamic and engaging work of contemporary art. Ornamentum proposes a large-scale, polished stainless steel balustrade configured into the undulating form of a trefoil knot. The work’s spiraling sculptural form is decorated by twisted balusters and embellished with double-scroll flourishes that are suggestive of a blossoming floral motif. Taken from the status of “everyday object” to that of “monumental sculpture,” the decorative railing, in Ornamentum, represents a transformation of the commonplace into the extraordinary, and the concrete into the metaphorical. In this way, what has become ordinary is repositioned and elevated so that its inherent poetics are revealed.

James Nizam is based in New Westminster, British Columbia. His work in the area of expanded photography blurs the boundaries between documentation, sculpture, architecture, technology, music and the sciences. The apparatus is always considered, folded back into our understanding of multi-dimensional interpretations of space, time and form. His work has been presented nationally and internationally with exhibitions at Reiter Galerie (Berlin), Christophe Guye Galerie (Zurich), Wilhelm Wagenfeld Stiftung (Bremen), Galerie Clement & Schneider (Bonn), KIT (Dusseldorf), Sharjah Art Museum (UAE), Musée régional de Rimouski (Québec), Vancouver Art Gallery, Surrey Art Gallery, Yukon Arts Centre and Dazibao (Montréal).