- Title
- Succession II
- Artist
- Gallant, Illarion
- Date
- 2022
- Medium
- aluminum
- Type
- sculpture
- Dimensions
- 548.64cm height x 365.76cm width x 182.88cm depth
- Accession Number
- NA
- Category
- Private Development Public Art
- Collection
- Public Art
- Lat/Long
- 49.211946841346254,-122.95249241727552
- View in Google Maps
- http://www.google.com/maps?q=49.211946841346254,-122.95249241727552
Succession II is part of a comprehensive body of work I have been developing and articulating through my Public Art Practice over the past 30 years. This work is a true reflection of my undying love for the landscape. I have been fortunate to combine my professional life as a Public Artist and Landscape Architect to express both a global and nuanced vision of the urban landscape influenced by the natural environment. Succession II is an opportunity to continue to explore this passionate dialogue on the complex intricacies of restoring our landscapes. Thematically, the walkway and surrounding landscape are reflective of a dry stream bed which creates an associative connection with nearby Byrne Creek. Succession II is named for the biological phenomenon of the successive evolution of plant habitats within an ecologically disturbed site to create a stable productive community. The intention of the sculpture is to reinforce metaphorically, the dynamic changes that will contribute to the success of this urban development. The visual narrative generated by Succession II illustrates the harmonic relationship between the textures of contemporary urban architecture and landscape architecture. Thematically in this development complex West Coast Architecture is being gently kissed by the natural West Coast hydrological phenomena of the dry stream bed. The role of Succession II is to enhance and celebrate this dynamic moment where Architecture and Landscape Architecture meet.
Rusnak Gallant principal Illarion Gallant has been a practicing professional artist since 1988. He has successfully completed many large scale, site specific, outdoor urban sculpture pieces. The work, highly symbolic, references the connectivity between evolution and the interaction of urban fabric, contemporary landscape and the human passage through the resultant synthesis. Gallant’s work is in Toronto, Calgary and Victoria.
The defining moment of Illarion’s pursuit of large scale work was in 1984, when he participated in the Lindabrunn Stone Symposium in Lindabrunn Austria. Lindabrunn was establishing itself as a cross cultural symposium event through the invitation of influential international land artists from countries behind what were then “The Iron Curtain”, Germany, Austria, Japan, Canada and The United States. Participation in the symposium was Gallant’s seminal moment where he was enlightened by the divergent possibilities of entwining sculpture in concert with the landscape.
In the context of landscape, Gallant prefers the contradictory textures of materials to create his hardscape palette. His juxtaposition of natural rock, dressed stone and concrete create a visual strength of mass, line and texture which establishes the required visual authority against which the softness of the planted landscape riots gently with equal force.