Inspired by the iconography of Hieronymus Bosch and the formal language of Buckminster Fuller, Melli Ink presents her sculptural viewpoint on the world in her work City of Glass, captured under a glass dome and realized using glass, rose quartz, and crystal.
Old and new world perspectives
The inspiration for City of Glass begins with Hieronymus Bosch, whose works were far ahead of their time and still generate discussion in the art world to this day, even though his famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights emerged in 1504. Over 460 years after Bosch, Buckminster Fuller built the first geodesic dome, a biosphere or, in other words, a “world within a world.”
More than half a millennium after Bosch and 50 years after Buckminster Fuller, Melli Ink brings both concepts together. The artist draws on Bosch’s throngs of people, animals, plants, and buildings, but instead of focusing on his hustle and bustle, she orients herself towards the utopian landscape of Grisaille found on the outer sides of Bosch’s triptych, where he depicts the Third Day of the biblical creation story, when the world was still empty.
Melli Ink covers this tidy world with a dome that traces Fuller’s architectural template – a composition of equilateral triangles that is similar to the Chamber of Wonder Crystal Dome, which likewise makes reference to Fuller’s geodesic dome.
The artwork is located at the VIP Lounge.