Ice art invades Millennium Park - and U.S. - for first time

Unlike most artwork, Gordon Halloran's paintings melt.

Halloran, who creates three-dimensional ice paintings by freezing colored water, likes that his art is temporary.

"It teaches us a bit about life and the fact that it's not permanent," said Halloran, whose exhibition, "Museum of Modern Ice," opens in Millennium Park on February 1. It will be the Canadian artist's first exhibition in the United States.

"I was always interested in creating art that I couldn't have imagined," Halloran said. "I was always looking for a form that would take me off in some [new] direction." Many artists reach for organic media - something close and plentiful.

For Halloran, that was ice.

He looked around and saw "a huge expanse of white canvas."

"I thought it would be a new way to look at painting on a large scale," he said. "I had the tool to make the painting sitting on the ice already. The Zamboni became my brush."

Halloran said he likes ice as a medium because it allows a painting to have depth, letting light shine through it. But he also likes the symbolism behind ice's short life span.

"It's a way to think about our environment now," he said. "We keep it, we maintain it, we think of it as precious work [but] it's only one step away from being melted and destroyed."

In case the temperature rises above 32 degrees during February, cooling aluminum plates will keep the artwork from disappearing. But when March 1 arrives, if Halloran has his way, the art will be left out to melt.

"It's really interesting for me to watch the transformation," Halloran said, explaining that the various colors in the art blend together as a piece melts.

Halloran said he hasn't experienced any snobbery from the artistic world about his choice of material, even though most artists don't like the idea of their art disappearing.

Judy Robins, a Chicago stone sculptor, said she applauds Halloran for trying something different, even though she chooses to work with stone because of its permanence.

"The fact that it changes as it melts fascinates me," Robins said. "I think it is very genius of him."

The exhibition at Millennium Park, organized by the Chicago Office of Tourism, will feature a 95-foot-long ice wall, and Halloran will embed a painting inside the park's McCormick Tribune Ice Rink. The park also will offer ice-related activities letting children create their own ice art.

"We're talking about a winter celebration in the park that is like nothing that has been done before," said Dorothy Coyle, director of the tourism office. "This should bring a whole new level of attention to the park, which is our premiere cultural asset right now."