Edinburgh Art Festival

Sanford Wurmfeld: ECyclorama Sculpture Court, Main Building, Edinburgh College of Art

The ECyclorama is a painting, but one unlike any previously witnessed. It is painted on the inside of a huge cylinder so that the viewer, entering from beneath, is surrounded by the painting, their field of vision filled with a rainbow of shifting colour. The colour moves through the whole spectrum, but the transitions are so subtle that it is impossible to be sure where one colour ends and the next begins. The effect is dynamic, an experience almost more like music than painting, a surround sound painting creating an experience of complete immersion in colour.

The artist, Sanford Wurmfeld, lives and works in New York. He has spent a year painting the ECyclorama. E stands for elliptical: its plan is an oval eight metres by ten, its shape inspired by the oval plan of many Baroque churches. The effect is baroque too. The oval form exaggerates the optical illusions of the work - as the eye moves across the painted surface the impact of the shifting colour is enhanced by the changes of depth and distance, increasing the uncertainty of what is really being seen.

The Cyclorama form the artist has used is coming home. It derives from the original Panorama, a painted public entertainment on the inside of a cylinder entered from beneath. It was invented by Robert Barker in Edinburgh in 1788. His first Panorama was a circular view of the city from the top of Calton Hill.

www.eca.ac.uk/festival

Also showing

eca Postgraduate Degree Show
South studios, Main Building, Edinburgh College of Art

An exhibition of final work by Masters students from the School of Design. Disciplines include Animation, Film & TV, Furniture & Product Design, Glass, Graphic Design, Illustration, Jewellery & Silversmithing, Performance Costume, Photography and Textiles.

24 Jul - 5 Sept

Open daily 10am - 6pm
Admission Free

eca Postgraduate Degree Show
27 Aug - 3 Sept

Open daily
10am - 6pm
Admission Free

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