36 Views of Orbit

Alluding to the 18th century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai’s famous woodblock prints of Mount Fuji, the subject of this work is the spiraling red giant of the ArcelorMittal Orbit observation tower built for the London Olympic Park in 2012. This mad structure infects its surrounds with a strange presence akin to a mutant DNA spiral rising from the toxic ground of these former wastelands; a last recalcitrant gasp from the areas’ rich industrial past. Circled from the ground and viewed from a variety of places and distances, Thirty-Six Views of Orbit depicts the tower as it peers between trees, waves its head above chimneys, over freeways and intrudes into the ordinary events playing out below.