New public art piece, 'Space Heist' unveiled in Athlone
A new piece of public art can be seen in Athlone, painted on the front of Athlone City Storage in Arcadia.
Edward Mannion of Athlone City Storage said that he wanted “to do something for the business that would catch people's eyes.” As he and his family have always had an appreciation for art, he decided to seek out artists for a striking and inventive piece of artwork that could be painted on the front of their building.
Through the website 'Book an Artist', he came into contact with Canadian artist Breanne Debski, who said that she “was looking for an artistic endeavour in Ireland”, as she has lots of friends here. The two parties collaborated on developing an idea for the artwork, and eventually settled on a heist theme based on a scene from the 2001 film Ocean's 11.
Breanne said that it took her 67 hours to complete the artwork, but that luckily “it only rained a little bit!” It was painted with acrylic paint on corrugated plastic, and titled 'Space Heist'. Her work harkens back to the moment in Ocean's 11 where Matt Damon and George Clooney's characters are working their way through an elaborate heist.
In the film, they break in by opening the “space”, represented in Breanne's artwork as outer space. (“Have a laugh,” she says, “It's tongue-in-cheek.”).
She represents these moments using a monochromatic technique that is commonly used in street art. The piece was hand-painted by fragmenting the image into a series of shapes and colours. The contrast of style between the figures and the open space creates tension that intends to draw the viewer in.
The texture of the corrugated surface has a playful effect of making the figures move on the surface. People can stand close and walk from the right to the left of the piece and watch the figures move on top of the surface.
Mr Mannion said that “customers have reacted really positively to it and people living in Arcadia have commented on it and how much they like it.” Athlone City Storage is a family-run business and Mr Mannion said that they have “plans for more art in the future, since this has been so successful.”