Ice, Frost, Art A Look At Winter By Gordon Halloran

Painting below zero project in Chicago

Gordon Halloran is a Canadian artist whose trademark was the invention of ice painting. As a renowned artist, illustrator, playwright and director who has worked for several decades in various publishing houses and theaters, he came to the conclusion that the ice surface is the source of his inspiration.

Painting below zero project in Chicago

He inextricably links his work with Canada, its cold winters and childhood memories: “In Trenton, Ontario, I spent many cold winters. I loved playing with ice, especially ice surfaces that I hosed to make a hockey rink. I loved to watch how the roughness of the ice gradually smoothes out and becomes smooth and shiny. Thirty years later, I began to imagine the entire surface of the ice rink as a painting, like an explosion of color."

The artist is inspired by the images of the Canadian winter landscape, ice and cold. The physical qualities of his works and the natural qualities of the environment in the form of melting ice reflect the current global climate change, draw attention to its disappearance from our world, and also emphasize the impermanence and transitional nature of existence, which is ultimately destined to disappear - “melt”.

In the early 90s of the twentieth century, Gordon Halloran introduced a new form of his own creativity - painting on ice. Having performed and placed his work on one of the skating rinks, he turned it into a public art project, where every visitor could join abstract painting and enjoy contemporary art. The Canadian community took this idea as the embodiment of national identity, and Gordon Halloran became a real goodwill ambassador and peacemaker, an honorary representative of Canada.

He says: “Canada is a big country. Why not make big pictures? " Indeed, his work is impressive in scale, such as the Calgary's Olympic Plaza, the Edmonton skating rink decorated by the artist for the Edmonton's World Figure Skating Championships, and installations for the Toronto City Winter Festival. For the last event, the artist created a scenic surface right on the Nathan Phillips Square skating rink, on which skaters and everyone else could skate.

Painting below zero project in Chicago

In addition to "ice painting" or "Painting below zero" (the official name of Gordon Halloran's works of ice), other works of the author were presented. They were located in the Ice Gallery and were blocks of colored ice, which, with the help of a special installation, were either frozen or thawed. The process of melting ice became the main creator, who mixed colors and changed the form of works, creating a unique combination of texture and color. A specially designed aluminum freezer plate system allowed the artist to work with this unique art form regardless of the weather. The exposition area was organized in such a way that the viewer was in close proximity to the artist's work, he could observe the process of transformation and metamorphoses of the interaction of temperature, ice and colors.

Successful projects in Canada brought Halloran worldwide fame, and in 2004 Gordon received an offer from the Olympic Committee to create an ice installation for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. There, his work was located in the church of the largest ancient (about 450 years old) military fort in Europe, La Fortezza di Fenestrelle, on the top of a mountain outside Turin, in the center of the Olympic Valley.

Project in the church of the military fort La Fortezza di Fenestrelle near Turin

The artist's works in the form of brightly colored ice plates were placed inside the building of the ancient church. Places for exhibiting were window and door openings, arcade spans, plane walls and floors. The works were placed in view of the possibility of viewing them in the light, thereby causing an association with the stained glass windows traditionally found in Catholic churches. The floor area was occupied by installations made of ice, they were located both on the same plane with it, and in three-dimensional space in the form of installations-sculptures. Thanks to the unusual lighting, through the colored ice plates, the space of the ancient church was filled with picturesque streams of light, which transformed both the interior of the church and the exhibits in it. The works of Gordon Halloran organically blended into medieval interiors,transformed the space and brought a new scenic accent to the mysterious atmosphere of the fort.

But one of the biggest projects by artist Gordon Halloran, set in a public place, was a work for Millenium Park in Chicago (USA), which was exhibited in the open air on Chase Promenade in 2008 from 1 to 29 February.

Painting below zero project in Chicago

The installation was a special cooling unit, consisting of aluminum surfaces, on which were attached plates of multicolored ice with a special coloring pigment, which interacted with the ice, forming new color combinations. Thus, we have a picturesque surface - an ice wall. In Chicago, it was 95 feet long and nearly 12 feet wide (29 m by 4 m).

The choice of the place for the exhibition was not accidental, the wall was located next to the McCormick Tribune ice rink, the ice of which the artist also painted in abstract terms. This allowed viewers to compare two scenic ice surfaces and have a unique experience of skating on a colorful ice painting.

The wall had sophisticated technical equipment. In addition to the cooling unit, it was equipped with spotlights that illuminated its surface in the evening. Due to the specificity of the material, as well as the combinations of color and light, the installation constantly changed its image. One critic compared it to a "visual spectacle." The main colors used in abstract painting on ice are rich tones of blue, yellow, red and green. The beauty of the color and texture of the ice was enhanced by the white background, which differed not only in color, but also in texture. The newly formed ice looked like a dense layer of frost, which emphasized the smoothness and hardness of the ice.

Painting below zero project in Chicago

The color plates were set in stretch order from cold colors to warm colors. So, the ice wall began with blue and slowly turned into red. As they interact with each other, a spectrum of a continuous series of changing colors arose in front of the viewer: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, blue, violet.

The installation actively interacted with the environment, reflected in the famous Heaven's Gate sculpture by Anish Kapoor. New images made viewers come back to her again and again. During the work of the exposition, 176 thousand people visited it. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley said: "We are proud to be the first city in the United States to display the work of Gordon Halloran in a unique and interesting way that confirms our city's reputation as an open-air museum accessible to all."

Exposition organizers also organized family events in the park and in a heated tent next to the ice wall. Interactive programs for all ages were held, such as: ice games, ice painting lessons, scientific experiments, dance lessons and more.

In this essay on the work of the Canadian artist Gordon Halloran, only a few of his works related to the unique technique of painting on ice were considered.

In the 21st century, traditional techniques and genres are being replaced by modern technologies that require no less skill from the artist than before. Gordon Halloran is a brilliant representative of an original artist, actively interacting with the environment, the audience, his own creativity and new trends in art.

Competition in the field of contemporary art gives rise to bold discoveries and inspires artists to new creative experiments. Breakthrough ideas in the field of exhibition design and technology create a new direction for presenting works of art in a modern cultural context, which are located outside specialized exhibition spaces and are composed of non-traditional materials.

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