“The purpose of art in a hospital is escapism and to give people a sense of peace, joy and wonder. I love to make artwork that makes people feel good and that’s uplifting and joyful..”
Jade Oakley, Artist
“Shine” is a large-scale, site-specific sculpture, consisting of hundreds of brightly coloured stainless-steel cables inspired by shafts of light. The work is dramatically suspended across the internal courtyard of the new Nepean Hospital, making the artwork visible from all floors of the building.
Shine represents sunbeams embracing across a chasm in the Blue Mountains, and is intended to give viewers feelings of happiness, peace and wellbeing. The artwork is intended to bring the beauty of the Blue Mountains into the experience of the Hospital, providing moments of connection to nature, delight and playfulness.
The lighting for the Shine artwork reflects this celestial phenomenon by programming a rich, coloured glow at sunrise and sunset. This gives patients and staff a connection to the outside world and provides a beautiful event to anticipate twice a day.
The artwork, while beautiful, presented several technical challenges to illuminate. It’s close proximity to patient treatment rooms required a high level of consideration of luminaire selection, lensing, placement and aiming, with detailed modelling of the sculpture undertaken at concept stage to ensure the correct lighting outcome was delivered without obtrusive light to the patient rooms. The lighting also had to be seamlessly integrated into the hospital’s helipad landing systems to ensure potential glare was eliminated during patient transport.
A series of high performance precision floodlights, with customised low glare optics, were discreetly placed amongst the landscaping at ground level. These floodlights bathe the work in slowly changing coloured light, inspired by the natural hues of the sky seen during sunrise and sunset. An advanced programmable DMX control system individually adjusts both the hue and intensity of each floodlight to create a finely resolved, ethereal and mesmerizing light display which transforms the presentation of the work during night time.
