News 
As presenting sponsor of the 57th Biennale Arte 2017, Swatch invited world-renowned contemporary artist Ian Davenport to exhibit his huge poured paint “Giardini Colourfall” installation in Venice.
In parallel with this project, Davenport applied his unique style and alternative paint technique to the design of the limited (1,966 units) and numbered Swatch Art Special watch named Wide Acres of Time.
The lively design of this Swatch incorporates Davenport’s colourful stripes on the strap and case, along with a chromatic vortex at the heart of the dial. To complement this bold and emotional design, the watch comes in special packaging, where the inspiration behind the watch is unveiled in a written excerpt from the “Wide Acres of Time” poem written by Ian Davenport’s brother.
Measuring 14 metres wide and 3.8 metres high, Ian Davenport’s “Giardini Colourfall” is a work of exceptional dimensions that is inherently bold and imbued with the Swatch spirit. To create this colourful work with its undeniable visual impact, Davenport covered an aluminium panel with a structure comprising more than a thousand carefully dripped colourful lines. Poured down from the top, each chromatic band stretching from top to bottom gives spectators a sense of a waterfall of colours (hence the name), pooling into each other at its base.
Born in 1966, British artist Ian Davenport is known for his colourful abstract paintings. Nominated for the Turner Prize in 1991 and awarded a prize at the John Moores exhibition in Liverpool in 1999, his work has been exhibited at a number of prestigious venues in the United Kingdom and abroad, in both solo and group shows.
July 06, 2017