Ava Clifforth
Profile
In my role as a Lead Designer at UAP (Urban Art Projects), I collaborate with contemporary artists, from early career to internationally recognised, to translate their concepts into large-scale public art works for government, corporate and private investors. I work closely with designers, curators, estimators, and fabricators to develop each project from sketch to installation. This means I understand the realities of engineering, of site constraints, budgets, and of diplomatic negotiations with stakeholders. Every project is unique, but all require a balance between artistic vision and practical execution.
In addition to my design work at UAP, I maintain an independent arts practice across painting, 3D animation and digital art works. I direct short-form video works that blend live action and animation for bands such as Floodlights and cult fashion label Karlaidlaw. While smaller in scale, these projects demand many of the same skills. Public art installation and digital production both involve the evolution of an essential concept as it moves through the testing ground of competing interests.
My work involves collaborative feats of endurance involving tight budgets, layered logistics, and liaison with a variety of creative and official players. Such work relies on trust, integrity, and persistence. You have to protect something fragile, while convincing the world it’s worth bringing to life. Whether it’s a two-minute music video or a twenty metre wide sculpture of an illuminated rainbow cat, fixed to the side of a building, the goal is the same: to protect the heart of the concept and help it take shape.
Public artworks are not simple objects. They often sit at the junction of civic infrastructure, private investment, and cultural life. Much of the public art I work on is commissioned through development-linked percent-for-art schemes. These initiatives, while imperfect, remain one of the few mechanisms through which capital is returned to culture. Public artworks, when done well, bring contrast and character to places shaped by repetition and efficiency. If developers occupy the skyline, artists should have a voice in shaping what happens on the ground.
The post-industrial, built environment appears to follow a monotonous rhythm; gridded curtain walls reflecting gridded streets, all captured and neatly rendered on gridded devices. When inner urban environments are shaped by repetition, it feels like the city itself is a screen, another sleek surface to scroll past. In such a grid, the vision of colourful, absurd, stoic and even ironic public art becomes the creative “glitch” – a break in the program; a welcome interruption to the daily routine of city dwellers.
Large scale public art works are not just ornamental. They are part of the city’s mise en scène, props in our daily performances that shape how we move, remember and relate to the world. Recent projects include Sister Crossing, a collaboration with Torres Strait Islander artist Janet Fieldhouse for the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and Guardian Lion by Troy Emery, located at Melbourne Square in Southbank. These sculptures represent more than visual landmarks. They intervene with the grid, sometimes playfully, sometimes critically, and carry with them layers of cultural meaning. In particular, First Nations public artworks carry stories, knowledges, and relationships to place that challenge colonial narratives and expand what public space can hold.
When done well, public artworks become landmarks for the imagination. They give the city texture, mystery, complexity, and whimsy that continue to fuel my design work today.
Links to Work
Public artworks for UAP
www.uapcompany.com/projects/sister-crossing
www.uapcompany.com/projects/guardian-lion
Recent public artworks
www.uapcompany.com/projects/tower-of-ten-billion-stars-1
www.uapcompany.com/projects/come-together
www.uapcompany.com/projects/yandjitup-kep-werd-place-of-the-bullrush-waterfall
Recent music videos co-directed for Floodlights
www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3WzuSl_nh4
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1yEGcfxo4Y
Personal website
Essay – Australian Architecture: Expressionism tendencies in the twentieth century
www.writing.org.au/australian-architecture-expressionism-tendencies-in-the-twentieth-century/