LARGE SCALE ART

Large-scale projects in architectural and environmental spaces

Street Paintings:

  • "E Pluribus Unum", 10,000 sq. ft., New Orleans, USA
  • 12,000 sq.ft., Rivesaltes, France

The street is all together the most common of all grounds and a space of transformative energy. In the street, people of all walks of life see each others, gather for celebrations, or to manifest their voice publicly. It is a place where anything comes, rises, and goes. A place of potentialities.

Painting on such grounds becomes a way to address what makes humanness, this mix of pain and pleasure, wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity. From this perspective, the street embodies a vivid sense of sacredness.

The sheer size of a street to be painted, ten thousand sq. ft. or more, requires the involvement of large groups of participants to make it logistically feasible and fast. Bringing people in this process enables each one of them to touch this sacredness on a personal level through their own performance. It is a way of transmutation from ordinary to significant, from anonymous to unique.

Coal Mine Art Project, France
Philippe Nault: Coal Mine Art Project
1. The site and the surrounding urban area
Philippe Nault: Coal Mine Art Project
3. Delineation of the symbols in the site
Philippe Nault: Coal Mine Art Project
7. Alignment of water circle and cup chalice

An environmental art concept.

The transmutational vision of the Slag heaps of Loos-en-Gohelle into a symbolic generator of energy.

The end of the coal mining industry deeply affected a whole population, its centuries old culture, and its economy. Eventually, the local government expressed the wish to use the abandoned site and of its monumental twin slag heaps, to create a symbol of revival and hope.

This project was never implemented but what these grounds revealed for me while developing the concept, forever changed me and my perception of the earth.

Suspended Sculpture, France
Philippe Nault: Suspended Sculpture

Celestial Dragon.

A one hundred foot-long tri-dimensional structure suspended over water, in an indoor public swimming pool. Using art and technology to address the acoustical challenges of such heavily used indoor space.

The sculpture is an assemblage of interconnected elements made of aluminum and foam glass.

Philippe Nault: Suspended Structure
Mural mosaic, Orleans France

Mosaic Mural – State commission

Two story mural on an exterior wall of a school in glass enamel mosaic.

Bas-Relief in Stone, France

Two-story high, hand-sculpted wall in stone in a building lobby.

This bas-relief is carved in a traditional limestone used in French Mediterranean region. A staircase with a halfway landing and leading to a mezzanine runs along the wall, allowing close contact with the sculpture.