If you’ve ever walked over the Cardiff Bay Barrage, you might have noticed splotches of yellow paint, seemingly splattered randomly around the lock area, under your feet, on parts of railings and halves of benches, partially covering life buoys, swiped across fixtures and fittings. It’s really quite bizarre!
As well as being the colour of sunshine and warmth, yellow is also a colour of caution, warning of the need to be careful, to take safety precautions, so painting surfaces yellow can indicate trip hazards, concealed danger, potential obstacles. But that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
The colour yellow is also known for its high visibility, which is why it’s often used on road safety signage, on ambulances, police vehicles and fire engines. The colour can be seen, the painted shapes recognised from a distance. Now maybe we’re getting closer to an explanation of the Barrage blotches?
There’s only one way to solve this mystery, and that’s to stand in one specific spot on the Barrage near the locks and look seaward. Only then can you see, in its entirety, the amazing artwork that is Three Eclipses for Three Locks.
The brainchild of Swiss artist, Felice Varini, who specialises in optical illusional artworks, this piece was painted on the Barrage in March 2007, by a team that included professional mountain climbers to paint the less accessible spaces. I love it for the way it challenges the mind of the viewer to figure out and complete the fragmented puzzle but I do think it’s time the Cardiff Harbour Authority repainted it. It would be a great shame, and a huge waste of the initial cost of £25,000, if this piece was allowed to fade into obscurity.
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