Big Art

Clients rarely ask more from a piece of art than the Macquarie Group: Having spent hundreds of millions in a stunning restoration of a Sydney beaux arts building, the corporation wants to fill the last remaining space - a clunky, inaccessible ten story light well - with an artwork that will not only look ravishing, it will drive entrepreneurial creativity among their staff.

UAP's work with indigenous artists has been some extraordinary artworks come to life, but expressing the dark history of Post Colonial Australia's occupation by Europeans becomes an even greater challenge when secret messages are being woven into the very material of the artwork itself.

When international clients come calling, UAP is keen to rise to the challenge. When the client is the King of Saudi Arabia, the budget is no problem. Rather, it's the challenges of deadline and location that have this 60 meter high sculptural tower struggling to rise from the Red Sea.

The struggle of "scaling up" artwork is never more apparent than when you're starting with a figure barely 30cm tall. When you add the difficulties of handcrafting in clay across the language barrier, then the final results speak both to an extraordinary tenacity of vision and the universality of artistic expression.

UAP lands a big local client - the Brisbane Airport Corporation. As they build a huge new parking station, they commission the UAP to cover one side of the station with kinetic art - art that moves.

Is there an art practice that engages with chance and seeks to explore the deep beauties of the universe at work? Big Art takes enormous dedication to the most intricate processes at every stage of production - not to mention taking molten bronze well outside of the safe zone.