About the Artwork

Please note this artwork has now been removed from St Helen’s Square.

Opening the Air is a three-dimensional drawing made up of a geometric field of fluorescent Plexiglas discs or ‘coins’. The coins bear intricate etchings derived from plans of early eighteenth-century glasshouse design and are planted on a low workaday wooden table. As the City-scape becomes ever more glassy, Opening the Air reflects upon the original glasshouses whose currency was green growth. Activated by light and the sun’s passage, the work changes in appearance throughout the day. 

Opening the Air is commissioned by Sculpture in the City. 

 

View our short film

 

Year: 2018


Copyright the Artist. Photo: Nick Turpin

Material

Edge-Lit Plexiglas, scaffold boards, aluminium fixings

Dimensions

690 x 270 x 25 cm

Artist Biography

Jyll Bradley

Jyll Bradley was born in Folkestone in 1966 and studied at Goldsmiths’ College and The Slade. Her installations, drawings and sculptures draw upon aspects of minimalism to express a personal engagement with identity and place. Bradley’s work combines craftsmanship with industrial fabrication through dynamic pairings of materials from different art histories or traditions and she often engages with site. Recently this has led to ambitious public commissions including ‘Green/Light (for M.R.)’ for The Folkestone Triennial 2014 and ‘Dutch/Light (for Agneta Block)’ (2017) for Turner Contemporary, Margate. These works also reflect her long interest in the structures that are built to capture light for green growth. Jyll Bradley has exhibited her work internationally at The National Library of Australia, Canberra, Centro de Arte Moderna, Lisbon and Museo de Antioquia, Medellin amongst others. Her work is represented in public collections including The Government Art Collection (UK), the Walker Gallery (UK) and Canberra Museum and Art Gallery (AUS). www.jyllbradley.com