Bathers who encounter the impressive Dream Gazebo at Queensland’s largest outdoor sculpture festival will be impressed that they can climb inside.
“It’s a really beautiful piece, it’s almost not art,” designer Jasmine Mainsbridge told AAP.
“You don’t need an intellectual approach, people just want to get involved.”
The two-meter-tall steel installation on the Gold Coast is one of 70 works in the 2022 exhibition and is even more impressive when you consider how it got there.
Mainsbridge creations are an industrial process.
One builder in western Victoria fabricated the aluminum frame of his gazebo, another fabricated the exterior from marine-grade stainless steel, and a third cut the roof from pink plexiglass.
The artist has seen his manufacturing costs rise by a third due to the recent rise in material prices, with the steel component alone costing over $ 7,000.
The seemingly solid sculpture was made in several parts and packed flat, which Mainsbridge has learned the hard way.
“The first sculpture I made was a large solid cubic mass and it cost me so much money just to get from my home to Melbourne,” he said.
Hamilton, western Victoria artist Hamilton has been sculpting for four years and sees his works as a three-dimensional extension of his geometric paintings and murals.
But it is a continuous experimentation to see if the materials, costs, logistics and deadlines can be reconciled with the ideas it wants to express.
Dream Gazebo was completed just three days before being transported by truck to the Gold Coast.
With the reopening of state lines, Mainsbridge was on the beach for the first time in two years to help set up his business.
“I’m really happy when I see them come to life because they’ve been in my head for so long,” she said.
The artist hopes to find a buyer for the $ 15,000 piece.
“Okay when I sell them, I’ll basically do another one, it’s kind of like a sculpture breeding program.”
Swell started in 2003 with 20 sculptures.
Now in its 20th year, the event has attracted over 150 artists, with works spanning more than a mile of sand.
Now in its 20th year, the Swell Sculpture Festival has attracted over 150 artists, whose works span a mile of sand in Currumbin Beach.
Among the memorable sculptures of recent years is a giant inflatable head of a diver that appeared to be partially submerged in the sand, titled Damien Hirst Looking for Sharks, by Danger Dave.
There was also Superegg by Jaco Roeloffs, a 500kg egg-shaped installation made up of 3000 used Nespresso coffee pods.
The Swell Sculpture Festival will run until September 18th.