Art As Part of Us
Art has been a part of human culture in some capacity or other since ancient times. It serves as a medium of not only personal self-expression, but also as a way to communicate the artist’s view of reality to other people. Working in the design industry allows us to create our own medium to express our idea. We can convey it not only through architecture and landscape design but also down to the pieces of the artworks. Artwork is an inseparable element in architecture and landscape. Some say it is the soul, others say it is the characteristic of the design as a whole. Artwork communicates the concept, and often the display of artwork more than pleases the eyes, but also touches the heart. Furthermore,not only for aesthetic values but the display of artwork is functioned as many things including for lighting, water fountain and even stepping.
We always incorporate many kind of artworks into our landscape design following each concept. Artwork can be translated into many forms including statues, sculptures, paintings, photography and installment. Depending on the space, 2 dimension artwork like painting and photography often displayed inside the building. While 3 dimension artwork such sculpture and art installation is normally exhibited outdoor as it typically takes up space. We mostly display statue, sculpture or water feature since we have numerous number of landscape project.
The Artwork of SHL Asia
Each project of course, has different concept with its artwork, some of the examples include our Natya project, Tanadewa project and Hyatt project. Following its landscape concept which is incorporating the village’s life of Bali and elevate it to the hospitality level, the artworks in our Natya resort project inspired by the things we often see in the villages. These things could be objects like chicken cages and cow bells or even the village people themselves, as we portrayed them in a relief on a wall along the pathway. The relief tells stories about daily activity in the village like a mother feeding their children or the farmer harvesting his crop.
Our other project, takes on the concept of the gods and goddess from the folk story. As like the name “Tanadewa” from Tana (land) and Dewa (God) which means Land of the Gods, the design of the artworks portrays this concept. We display a relief of the dancing goddess in some spots inside the resort. There is also a relief of Balinese mythology about Arjunawiwaha which is the story about Arjuna getting rewarded with 7 beautiful apsaras (female spirit in a Hindu culture) after accomplishing some tasks. All the statues and relief are nicely done by our artwork supplier, 66 Pottery Bali.
Different concept and artwork is displayed in Hyatt Regency Sanur. This resort is one of the pioneers in the island. We are restoring it without erasing the original characteristic of Hyatt. Working on the landscape design, we are collaborating with Tiera Design from Thailand and Ketut Suratman from Rimba Bali. In creating the statues and sculptures, we team up with the local Bali sculpture, I Wayan Sugawa from Taro Arca Dewata which has more than 20 years as a sculptor. All the newer artworks including statues, water fountains and fire torches are implementing the classic Balinese style, with the more antique feels.
Most of our landscape designs integrate tropical Balinese concept, with lush vibrant softscape combines with natural materials like woods and different kind of stones for the hardscape. Therefore our pieces of artwork are also mostly influenced with Balinese style and characteristic. We enhanced it with the flair of local values such tropical wildlife and nature, Bali daily life, or folk stories. We let our designs act as the storyteller to enhance people different life experiences. The aim is not necessarily to create the artwork that would be loved or not loved, but to add something new to the whole design and make people think about it.