Portal by Nicole Beck

After a thorough review process by the City of Elmhurst’s new Public Arts Commission, the artist Nicole Beck was chosen for her dynamic proposal titled Portal, an O-shaped armature with glass that changes color under certain conditions. Scheduled to be installed late this year in the new Larch Park near downtown, the joyful steel and glass sculpture promises to draw visitors. The artist conceived Portal’s 12-foot nexus of colored glass shapes as a way to reflect Elmhurst’s interconnected community and a moment of sheer wonder for residents to enjoy.

The sculpture was created to bring joyful color and vital energy to the community. The shape implies a portal, a pathway, or a personal view into Elmhurst. The science behind toroids is fascinating and represents a holoflux of information, that consciousness is inherent in the structure of the universe.  Entropy, gravity, spin, and momentum all have a play in the expansion and compression of a toroidal axis.  It is the most fundamental shape of existence- the basic geometry of energy flow. It is a vector of equilibrium, the blueprint upon which nature forms energy into matter. We can observe it everywhere- in atoms, cells, seeds, flowers, trees, animals, humans, hurricanes, planets, galaxies, and even the cosmos.  It is expressed in essential electromagnetic fields and the golden spiral.