Damian Moppett's “Landscape Abstracted” being installed at the northeast corner of Douglas and Goring Streets in Burnaby, B.C., 2021, steel, galvanized steel, aluminum and paint, 21.5′ x 26′ x 9′ (courtesy the artist)
Vancouver-based artist Damian Moppett saw his massive artwork for the first time as a crane lifted it into place outside a condominium development in Burnaby, B.C., earlier this month.
Moppett's undulating steel sculpture, Landscape Abstracted, is mounted atop a pole, towering over passersby at 21 feet in height and 26 feet in width. It was fabricated by Carvel Creative, a public art and design studio in Calgary, based on his maquette. The company scaled up the one-by-two foot maquette, then drove the 9,000-pound work to Burnaby.
Damian Moppett's “Landscape Abstracted” prior to installation. (courtesy the artist)
“It feels like a collaboration,” says Moppett, who is happy with the finished work. It took five hours to install the sculpture, which was commissioned by Millennium, a condo development company.
Moppett says there's no story behind the piece.
“I wanted to make something that was really straightforward. I'm sometimes disenchanted with the amount of public art that is out there that doesn't try to capture the imagination of the public or ... isn't really considering the fact that it will be out in the public, viewed by old people and young people.”
“I wanted to make something ... colourful, attractive and playful,” he says. “It's just a landscape really.”