client: beetham | size: 5m x 7m x 5m | site: liverpool | material: painted steel | date: jan 2007
The 5 meter steel lines of Skyline loop, sweep, move and touch. Tentative, gracious, complex and enigmatic, they act out unseen points of contact. Places of arrival and departure. The meeting of the sky, land and sea; linking separate elements into one.
The blue of the sky brought down to the earth, woven into ecstatic lines. A cage for the air. Open and inclusive. Just touching the ground, lifting and restless. A tidal rhythm of waves that trace a perpetual and elemental gesture.
One movement repeated three times, three movements forming one image.
Skyline is a reflection on time, the past present and future all sharing a single form. Jostling for space, competing for light, an intricate game of echoes and repeats.
Liverpool, sending out ships to the edge of the world, brings back cargo and history. Threads of cotton impossible tangled, brought from the west, and sent out to the east.
A crowded form bustling with lines carving out a quiet space, inviting the passer by to untangle the puzzle, walk through and reflect.
The three lines of Skyline address themselves to the mass of the three graces, and answering their bulk with light, rhythm and air.
Oliver Barratt
17 June 2007
