The High/Perpetual Xmas, No Abstractions 2008
Scott Redford | Australia b.1964 | The High/Perpetual Xmas, No Abstractions 2008 | Brick, stone, steel, aluminium, 2 pack paint, acrylic, neon glass tube, fluorescent glass tube | This project has received financial assistance through Arts Queensland from art+place, the Queensland Government's Public Art Fund | Collection: ArtWorks Queensland
The High/Perpetual Xmas, No Abstractions 2008 is the first of Scott Redford’s ‘proposals’ for public sculptures to be realised at full scale.
Its sharp angles, bright colours, neon lights and veering curves are drawn from an original motel sign in Yukon, Oklahoma, and it exemplifies the 1950s American roadside architecture style called ‘Googie’. This style was later adopted in Australia’s most famous resort city – Surfers Paradise on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
The sculpture is both an advertising sign and a fantastical promise. It invites viewers to consider how shapes, stimuli, symbols and statements function as ‘selling tools’. By quoting conceptual art and Pop art, as well as Biblical texts, surfing narratives and art history debates, Redford creates a new visual poem where ‘cultural cringe’ gives way to a celebration of our complex local and international popular culture.
