Installed in 2020, Dreaming is a fairly new creation residing at the Richmond-Adelaide Centre, 100 Adelaide Street West. Spanish artist Jaume Plensa is known for creating large-scale public art installations in major cities, including New York, London, Singapore, Tokyo, and now Toronto.
Dreaming is 3 storeys high and was commissioned by the Oxford Properties Group Inc. in 2016. The artwork alters the area’s streetscape and anchors a reimagined public plaza called The Terrace at Oxford’s Richmond-Adelaide Centre. The piece is a cast stone portrait created with white marble and resin, installed on top of a base that serves as a public bench to encourage the public to enjoy the outdoor public space.
This portrait of a young girl with her eyes closed in quiet contemplation was created with the intention of passersby looking inward. Plensa’s vision is for the art to act as a metaphor for humanity’s dreams for the future and for a shared human experience; a concept needed now more than ever before.
As you circle the piece, an optical sensation occurs and the effect messes with your mind and visual senses. Seen from the viewer’s left, the work’s proportions and dimension seem as they should be. As you circle around your right side Dreaming seems to suddenly narrow and it becomes evident how flat the work is in actuality. Viewed directly from the back, Dreaming appears as a small sliver of material.
Here is a short video of the artist speaking about his vision and creation of Dreaming, and the efforts to install the work in the Richmond-Adelaide Centre:
Click here if you’d like to visit the artist’s web page.
This is such a fantastic artwork. One interesting thing is that every time I visited it, there was a security guard in the building nearby and I believe – I swear – her job was to make sure this didn’t get defaced. Let’s face it, all that white … you can just see someone wanting to tag the thing.
I absolutely love this sculpture. I was wondering whe you would add this to your. Collection Marv . It is so mesmerizing
I agree, guys. It is indeed mesmerizing, and it seems to change shape as you circle around it.