‘Girls night out’
by elyssa sykes-smith
Oran Park Hotel Bistro
2025
Girls Night Out captures the playful, exuberant experience of a night out with friends. The sculpture is a contemporary timber assemblage with two figures poised in an acrobatic feat of engineering, interacting with the columns and floating platform, and appearing to be suspended in movement.
Artist Elyssa Sykes-Smith comments:
Designed to reflect the geometric and organic lines depicted in the architecture, the Girls Night Out sculptures are a site-specific invention responding to Oran Park Hotel as a social gathering space.
Walking the line between figurative and abstract, the human body is modelled expressively in blocks of wood, each element coming together to construct the forms of the body, like a cubist painting. The artwork explores the tension between the body and the architecture, and through the process of deconstructing the form the figure is abstracted to the point where it becomes almost architectural.
Project Team
Client: Momento
Artist: Elyssa Sykes-Smith
Public Art Curation: Guppy Art Management
Architecture: Archebiosis Architects
Engineering: Event Engineering
Installation: Constellation Build & Construct
Photography: Adam Scarf Photography
About The Artist
Elyssa Sykes-Smith is an installation artist and sculptor based in Australia and the UK. Her work transforms figurative sculptures into more abstracted forms through an exploration and deconstruction of space, movement, form and plane. Sykes-Smith uses a broad range of processes and materials including modelling and casting with metals and timber construction. Her artworks explore issues and experiences of humanity. Recent art includes public art works at the Venice 2023 Architecture Biennial, Barangaroo Reserve, Sculpture by the Sea (Bondi & Cottesloe), Snowy Valley Sculpture Trail, Shoalhaven Regional Gallery façade, Scenic World and private collections.
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