By Daily Press staff
Artist Lita Albuquerque was selected by the Bayside District Corp. and the Santa Monica Arts Commission from a pool of Santa Monica artists to create new banners for the Third Street Promenade. The art banners — collectively titled “Dark Iris” — will be unveiled Thursday, Aug. 3, at 5 p.m. on the Third Street Promenade.
Undertaking the project, Albuquerque found inspiration in the astronomy, history and the “hidden body of information indigenous to the Promenade,” said the artist working from her studio at Santa Monica’s 18th Street Arts Center.“I wanted to align the idea of strolling with a visual sequence that people would ‘read’ as they walk along the promenade — a sort of story that could be picked up and ‘read’ anytime during the sequence.”
The banners, silk-screened on mesh fabric, feature deep, rich colors that contrast dramatically with the commercial signage of the district. Eighteen banners with images on both front and back will be situated along the busy shopping district. While each banner has its own title and identity, the 36 images combine to form Dark Iris.
Albuquerque describes the work as a tone poem, variations on a theme that “imagines the earth as the iris of a universal eye, regulating light by expanding and contracting the pupil.”
Taking the ideas of a leisurely stroll, cosmic imagery and the sky, Albuquerque hopes observers will have fun figuring out the meaning of the words and images.
“The entire series of images is meant to remind us of our capacity to envision and to have vision,” she said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 24, 2006. Read the original PDF.