Sydney’s construction hoardings become a blank canvas for Holt to create gallery of ‘Concrete Art’

The City of Sydney local government authority has developed a ‘Hoardings Policy’ to manage street-facing hoardings used to screen and protect the public from building developments around the city. Council saw an opportunity to re-purpose and reinterpret these hoarding spaces as public artworks, enhancing the public domain and making a meaningful contribution to ‘Creative City’ Sydney.

Brand and design studio Holt was commissioned to contribute a series of pieces, which would use these hoardings as a blank canvas.

Holt’s response was to draw upon the ‘Concrete Art’ abstractionist movement, which was first introduced by Theo van Doesburg in his ‘Manifesto of Concrete Art’ in 1930: “Abstractionism must be free of any symbolical association with reality…lines and colours are concrete by themselves”.

Holt created a series of eight compositions incorporating geometric elements and simple flat colour to engage with the public and contrast the immediate environment.