Atomic: Full of love full of wonder, 2005
Dimensions vary
Polystyrene, nylon wire, paint and electric fans
Source: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/316.2006/
Trained as a painter, Nike Savvas works across sculpture, installation, kinetic and light-based media.
Much of Savvas’ work has consisted of large-scale installations that ‘translate’ painting into three dimensions and popular culture into high art. Blurring the boundaries between disciplines, genres and materials she has created her own unique iconography. Savvas states that ‘It is important as an art maker to dissolve the boundaries that create and reinforce convention. I work from the inside to break down and erode the boundaries that create distinction, to create a unique animal of sorts, one that is free of the shackles of the arbiters of power. it’s all about liberty and a new world. It’s a kind of personal and public revolution.’
Utilising quantity and simple background colours to create an immersive and infinitive space was a key component in Nike Savvas’s kinetic installation, Atomic: Full of love full of wonder. Despite the unpleasant associations of atomic energy with bombs, Savvas evoked sense of wonder and pleasure in this immersive and calming installation where thousands of vibrating coloured balls, were suspended. Recreating the atoms, fundamental structure of all things. The balls oscillate gently as the fan breezes across the room. The colours of her works were inspired by the Australian landscape of the outback. Apart from the use of space, quantity and colourful elements in the artist’s work, the works shares similar ideas with seeking plastopia. The title of the work itself indicates the optimism of the Utopian future that atomic energy seemed to offer in the post-war period.
