Sydney Opera House Sails to be transformed by Australian artist Jonathan Zawada during Vivid Sydney

Acclaimed Australian artist Jonathan Zawada to transform the Sydney Opera House for Vivid Sydney

Sydney – Thursday 3 May, 2018. A 3D light sculpture housed within the iconic Sails of the Sydney Opera House will illuminate Utzon’s masterpiece from 6pm on Friday May 25 for Vivid Sydney, the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas. Award-winning Australian artist Jonathan Zawadahas created Metamathemagical – a specially commissioned, site-specific artwork that will transform the World Heritage-listed masterpiece into a digital light sculpture inspired by Australian motifs across science, nature and culture. Zawada is a leading artist with a long history of collaborating with top music acts such as Flume, The Presets, Mark Pritchard and Moses Sumney. He is uniquely suited to bring the Sails to life for Vivid Sydney, when the entirety of the Opera House is taken over by incredible music for Vivid LIVEincluding Solange, Mazzy Star, Ice Cube and DREAMS.   Ten years ago, Brian Eno, the legendary British artist and inaugural curator of ‘Luminous’ – now Vivid LIVE – became the first artist to Light the Sails of the Opera House. He considered his artwork ‘77 million paintings’, projected onto the Opera House in 2009, as ‘visual music’ and paved the way for spectacular artworks to come, including the animated First Nations collaboration Songlines in 2016 and Ash Bolland & Amon Tobin’s Audio Creatures in 2017. In Metamathemagical, Zawada’s use of cutting-edge technology challenges our understanding of the possibilities of projection. Taking the unique three-dimensional form of the Opera House as a starting point, the artwork explores metaphysical themes through a series of sculptural compositions that distort and mutate in continuous motion. Inspired by the dual concepts of cosmic creation and human creativity, Zawada uses bold neon colour and striking geometric designs to create captivating scenes comprised of everyday objects and natural specimens that evolve, dissolve and metamorphose. Jonathan Zawada, Curator of Metamathemagical, says: “Interacting with an icon as beautiful as the Sydney Opera House really feels like a once in a lifetime opportunity. Metamathemagical explores the concept of creation and the creative process, both on an individual, personal level, but also a cosmic and environmental one. I’ve taken inspiration from the natural world around us and the synthetic world of artificial materials, substances and textures. The Opera House is a completely unique piece of geometry so rather than simply thinking of it as a two-dimensional surface to project onto, I created Metamathemagical as a 3D work from the very start using open source software to create many of the colours and textures.” Ben Marshall, Curator of Vivid LIVE at the Sydney Opera House, says: “10 years ago Brian Eno’s inspired vision first filled the Sails of the Opera House with art. This year, it is a delight to usher in the wild imagination of internationally lauded Australian artist Jonathan Zawada. Metamathemagicaltransfigures Utzon’s masterpiece into a dazzlingly hyperreal kinetic sculpture, rippling out from Bennelong Point across the entire city and in beautiful synchronicity with the ambitious, rigorous music event it shelters.” Jonathan Zawada’s Metamathemagical is co-curated by the Sydney Opera House and Destination NSW for Vivid Sydney and will light up the Sails every night 6pm-11pm from 25 May to 16 June. There will be audio-described tours of the Sails for visually-impaired patrons on selected evenings during the festival. For those unable to attend Lighting of the Sails in person, the Sydney Opera House will once again stream the full broadcast live from the Sydney Opera House Facebook page on Friday 25 May, 2018. Jonathan Zawada (b.1981, Australia) Known for his multi-faceted approach to the field of art and design that weave both the analogue and digital, artist Jonathan Zawada is often seeking to create tangible artefacts of transient, ephemeral virtual experiences in his work. Centered around the intersection and blend between the artificial and the natural, Zawada’s world is hyperreal, delicate and intricately detailed, as well as bold and dynamic. Zawada’s practice is informed by his early roots in web design and coding, and his further evolution into commercial graphic design, illustration and art direction. It now includes object and furniture design, sculpture, video, installation and painting. He has won two ARIAS for album artwork and has presented solo exhibitions of his oil paintings and installations in galleries around the world including Los Angeles, Paris, Tokyo, London, Sydney and Beijing. Vivid LIVE From 25 May – 16 June, the Sydney Opera House welcomes some of the most ambitious and innovative artists to the nation’s most famous stages for Vivid LIVE, part of Vivid Sydney, the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas. In 2018, Vivid LIVE celebrates its 10th anniversary as the Opera House’s annual centrepiece contemporary music festival, having first launched in 2009 as ‘Luminous’, the brainchild of renowned British artist and musician Brian Eno. Curated for the fourth time by the Opera House’s Head of Contemporary Music Ben Marshall, the festival continues to transform the Opera House inside and out, hosting the most interesting and original artists from around the world in its theatres, rehearsal spaces, foyers, recording studio and, most publicly, its iconic Sails. A festival of firsts, Australian premieres and bespoke music projects, it has staged Brian Eno’s ‘Pure Scenius’ (2009), The Cure’s Reflections (2011), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O in ‘Stop The Virgens’ and Janelle Monáe (both 2012), Kraftwerk’s The Catalogue in 3D (2013), St. Vincent (2014), An Evening with Morrissey (2015), Bon Iver’s ‘Cercle’ and Max Richter’s ‘Sleep’, performed overnight in the Concert Hall (both 2016). The ground-breaking Songlines transformed the Sails into an animated canvas of indigenous artwork in 2016, and last year Ash Bolland brought the Sails to life with his mesmerising marine-inspired Audio Creatures. For more information visit sydneyoperahouse.com/vividLIVE Vivid Sydney Vivid Sydney is the world’s largest festival of light, music and ideas, which for 23 days – from 25 May to 16 June 2018 – places a spotlight on Sydney and reinforces its position as the home of light, creativity, cutting edge music, engaging conversations and the exchange of new ideas. The festival is owned, managed and produced by Destination NSW, the NSW Government’s tourism and major events agency. In 2017 Vivid Sydney attracted a record 2.33 million attendees and injected over $143 million into NSW’s visitor economy. For more information visit www.vividsydney.com