PORTAL

PORTAL is a monumental, towering public art installation designed to evoke awe and wonder. It is the latest piece in our ever-growing portfolio of large-scale, structurally-led designs.

The artwork stands 15m high, towering above the viewers below. The inside of the giant archway is lined with diffused LED that moves and shifts to create an otherworldly, ethereal display of glowing light. Transporting viewers to a place where anything can happen, where unexpected apparitions appear among the well-known landscapes and spaces the viewers are accustomed to experiencing every day.

PORTAL is both delicate in feel and dramatic in scale. Contrasting with, whilst simultaneously framing, its surroundings & backdrop - it captures a surreal, breathtaking moment in time, resulting in a dreamlike vision.The artwork can be enjoyed from afar as well as from within. Viewers are drawn to the towering light display, and invited to enter the PORTAL, allowing them to experience the transcendental audio-visual show from inside the sculpture.

Inspired by our interaction with monuments and megaliths, and how these objects alter human behaviour, energy and emotion. We are naturally drawn to such objects and have been throughout history, the aim was to create something conducive to the same shift in energy and emotional response, by creating environments that simultaneously transfix the viewer, drawing them in and holding them in surreal, dream-like environment whilst transporting them somewhere different entirely. PORTAL taps into the human behaviour of being drawn to such objects as innate curiosity and wonder compels us to seek further understanding.

The process of creating PORTAL was an exercise in Lucid’s signature structurally-led design combined with a surrealist artistic vision - the result is a captivating, otherworldly light art sculpture. Surrealists explored unique ways of interpreting the world and the human experience, turning to dreams and the unconscious as inspiration for a new vision. This movement aimed to change perceptions of the world by exploring dreams, the unconscious mind and the irrational. Our subconscious is what makes us human, it differentiates us from all other life on this planet, playing a pivotal part in the human experience.

The artworks ethereal, glowing light display and beautifully haunting score creates a real-time dreamscape that viewers can experience from within the piece. The artwork is an exploration into the subconscious and the human psyche, by bringing imagination and creativity not only to the forefront but into a tangible object formed in reality to create a surreal, yet deeply human experience.

PORTAL was commissioned by Bournemouth Arts by the Sea Festival and premiered at the 2023 edition of the festival.