Water Sculpture

Artwork: Water Sculpture

Artist: Joan Llavería Arasa

Location: Roundabout confluence between Vicente Blasco Ibáñez avenue and the Green Belt.

Date: 2001

A stainless steel sculpture-fountain located in a green area in the shape of an artichoke where light and water play a role in the piece. The pressure of the water on the steel planes achieves a colourful reflection of the light, giving a poetic and human dimension to the urban environment.

It is intended to be a neoclassical-inspired landmark at the northern entrance to the town and a unique aesthetic element within the continuity of the Green Belt. Furthermore, the north entrance road is, without a doubt, one of the most unique and traditional accesses to the city of Aldaia. And it is precisely in this area where one of the most successful urban development plans is taking place, despite the complexity of the road traffic. At the same time it functions as an urban counterpoint to the singular architectural presence represented by the TAMA (the Municipal Theatre/Auditorium), and as an endpoint on the road coming from Xirivella, which was reinforced by the elliptical perspective created by the alignment of the trees lining the road.

Conceptually, it is a sculptural form that integrates the structural materiality of stainless steel and the ethereal presence of light and water in a composition of a symbolic nature. Of particular interest is the sense of order and containment determined by the planes of steel in contrast to the overflowing dynamism and thrust caused by the pressure of the water jets. Sheets of stainless steel that at the same time spread the light in the spaces between the sheets in a dynamic impulse that functions as a metaphor for life.

The sense of order and symmetry gives the work a certain solemnity attenuated by the sensuality of the forms, the effect of the water and the reflection of the light. In short, an attempt to update an urbanising conception of the fountain-sculpture form in the public space, seeking to create a centre on which to focus our interest and create a sense of calm within the compositional dynamism of the elements that make it up, generating, from an urban point of view, a sense of clear centrality in an environment generally dominated by the disparity of elements and forms.

Art públic a Aldaia (2006). Arte y Entorno y Ayuntamiento de Aldaia, p.118-131.

L’Informatiu (Butlletí d’Informació Municipal), núm. 66-2ºtrimestre 2002, p.22-23.