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Artist creates mesmerizing patterns on the floor of the American Academy in Rome

Artist creates mesmerizing patterns on the floor of the American Academy in Rome

Based in Los Angeles, designer Bryony Roberts‘ installation, Primo Piano, covers a distinctive stone floor at the American Academy in Rome with a colorful pattern of decals.

The work builds upon the pre-existing two-tone square pattern on the hall’s floor. Roberts caters her design adaptations to this context, offering, in her words, a “modest, neo-Renaissance pattern of travertine circles and diamonds inlaid into peperino stone.”

Surrounding stone motifs, laid around the floors perimeter compliment the the medieval Baroque Cosmatesque flooring that is enriched by the geometric flooring. A clever use of color and “curvilinear forms” helps give the impression of depth too.

Roberts has overlaid varying circles and diamonds and squares (all in different and alternating colors) to break the monotony of the existing pattern. At first glance, from an angle, the resulting pattern appears random. This is amplified by the fact that Roberts stuck to a rigid color palette comprising black, pearl grey, and purple.

When viewed from above, one can clearly see a sense of rhythm within the artwork. In plan view, this is much more obvious and an even more explicit symmetry can be found when removing certain colors/form overlays.

“As the Cosmatesque floors were designed to guide church processions, so this project both responds to and disrupts patterns of movement in the space, producing impromptu choreography as people entering the academy step and dance around the shapes on the floor,” Roberts said in a statement.

The installation is currently on view at the 2016 Cinque Mostre Exhibition.

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