Norman Mooney’s two sculptures made their debut in China at Guangdong Nanhai Art Field

Based in Nanhai, Foshan, a southeastern town of China, Nanhai Art Field is an ecological art compound that embraces indigenous scenes of Xiqiao Mountain and its surrounding small lakes, villages, and local markets. Butterfly Effect and Windseeds, made their debut in here on view from Nov. 18th, 2022 to Feb. 19th, 2023.

Photo credit: FROOTS GALLERY

It celebrates field art, eco-awareness, and multiversity of local lifestyles with 134 artists, architects, musicians, dancers, designers, and city planners from 15 countries, including MAD Architect (China), Sou Fujimoto (Japan), Liu Jianhua (China), James Tapscott (Australia), and Norman Mooney (USA).

Photo credit: 田方方

Windseeds and Butterfly Effect recast inborn rhythms and patterns found in the natural world

Akin to Mooney’s iconic starburst structure, Butterfly Effect presents itself as a mathematically coherent object with a cylinder body and 12 jointed wing petals as hub-and-spokes, all of which take functional shapes and positions as counterweights to one another. Carved from laminated apple plywood, the sculptural mass spells out hidden geometric parallels and mimesis registered among natural and manmade objects.

Photo credit: FROOTS GALLERY

Photo credit: FROOTS GALLERY

Photo credit: FROOTS GALLERY

Mooney’s other work, Windseeds No. 3, rises above the water of Tingyin Lake like a starburst geometry at 12ft in diameter. Emanating as a firework of angular spikes jutting out from a convex polyhedron, Windseeds responds to its environment by casting soft shadows on the water. It speaks strongly of Mooney’s central idea that his sculptures focus on “subliminal beauty that is found in the simplest of natural structures." The two sculptures bring audiences into a constructive dialogue between materiality and space, nature and artificiality, math and arts, and orchestrate a concerto of materiality (wood and stainless steel) and naturality within at Nanhai, Foshan.

Photo credit: XiaoJH

Photo credit: FROOTS GALLERY

Photo credit: FROOTS GALLERY

About Norman Mooney and Norman Mooney Studio

Norman Mooney was born in Dublin Ireland in 1971. He studied at the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork and completed his BFA at the National College of Art in Dublin in 1992. He then received the distinguished honor of participating in the Third Degree program at the Irish Museum of Modern Art from 1992 to 1993. In 1994 he relocated to New York City and has been exhibiting locally and internationally for more than 20 years. Recent exhibitions include, Lightscape at Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York, Nanhai Art Festival in Guangdong China, and Carolina Sardi & Norman Mooney at Waterhouse & Dodd in New York. Mooney is best known for his large-scale outdoor installations, set in both urban and botanical environments, that animate the “elemental and cyclical synergies of nature.” With elements found in micro and macro universes, Mooney makes art to probe into our sense of scale, form, and pattern within physical and non-physical spaces. His works synthesize biodynamic systems from nature to configure sturdy, chunky geometric forms via means of math and mechanical science.