Simons Department Stores places a high value on Art and each of their locations proudly features a signature work of art by a Canadian artist. When the chain opened in Mississauga Ontario, renowned ceramic artist Brendan Tang was commissioned to create a new work for that store.
Tang was accustomed to creating pieces generally not much bigger than a teapot. Faced now with a major work, twice as tall as himself, Brendan came to 3DS to take advantage of our design/assist procedure and ability to fabricate beautiful things at large scale. His vision was for a whimsical, towering sculpture, continuing the character of his regular-sized works. The style of the piece combines precision computer-age machining with the meticulous look & feel of traditional Chinese hand-sculpting and decorative painting. It’s a bit hard to decide if it’s a flying robot from 15th-century China, or a Ming Dynasty teapot, with futuristic retro rockets (or “barnacles”, as Brendan calls them).
3DS took the concept and scaled it up, to form in solid fiberglass. Brendan and his crew set up in our shop, to hand-paint the floral designs and hand-carve the “trail of vapor” that crowns the piece. The finished work now greets visitors to Simons’ new Mississauga store, looking like it might waddle up, raise an intergalactic palm and say, “Ni hau ma, Earthling.”