Behind Sydney Festival 2015's Most Visible Art Work

Maser carved his name out (literally) on the streets and walls and trains of Dublin as a teenager, and has grown to become one of Ireland’s best loved street artists, with his public artworks found across Europe and North America and now, Sydney. His maze-like Higher Ground opens today in Hyde Park, looming over the spot where popular bouncing-castle Stonehenge Sacrilege stood in 2014.

“Maser was originally just a tag that I made up around the age of 14 or 15 just so I didn’t get caught. And it stuck, it became a nickname,” he explains. Almost 20 years later, even though his art is well above board, Maser still prefers to maintain a low profile, and keeps his real name and age under wraps. “I’m not going miles out of my way to hide my identity, I just like the work to speak for itself. I don’t want to showcase myself too much, I’m just not really interested in that.”

Higher Ground will speak with some volume. The monolithic, perspective-skewing, Op Art-inspired installation is being built in Hyde Park for Sydney Festival. “This is by far, definitely the biggest structural piece from the ground up I’ve designed and built, and yeah, it’s huge,” he says. “Having people engage with three dimensional painting, they become a part of it, take ownership of it, share it if they want, and you know it’s that experience of excitement that I love."

Maser says his style has been largely influenced by audience responses to his work over the years. What began as a covert graffiti operation (“It was a subculture that basically only we could read,” he says of the abstract typography and skewed letter fonts synonymous with tagging) changed course when Maser realised he could use his art as a tool for garnering awareness about social issues.

“I started engaging the public a lot more with writing social messages that at the time I felt were needed," he says. "Besides going into a recession [in Ireland], there were also mental health awareness and homelessness issues.” Maser took to writing political slogans inspired by the typefaces and colours from the hand-painted signs and adverts seen around the city between the 1930s and 1960s. “So I just continued that narrative, and got great feedback from that.”

Higher Ground is an extension of a large-scale project Maser recently completed in Berlin. “But I wanted it bigger and better this time. I wanted elevations where people could go up and look down on other people within the space, so it’s creating more of a complete environment.” With its geometric lines and bright colours, the immersive sculpture is reminiscent of graphic artist MC Escher’s optical illusion sketches from the early 1900s.

Upon receiving the commission, Maser looked at Hyde Park on Google Maps and took note of the cathedral and the natural environment of the park. “It’s the play, the juxtaposition of this almost synthetic minimalist form in this natural environment that I think is going to be really effective. I think if we put this in an industrial estate it wouldn’t have the effect that it will have when you put it on grass with trees around it and really strip back all the forms, really minimalistic 45 degree angles, flats, I think it’s going to work really well. I hope it does.”

Not only is this Maser’s most ambitious work to-date, it’s also the furthest he’s ever had to travel and he hopes audiences will engage with the work openly. “Don’t try and figure it out,” he advises. “I have my reasons for creating it but you can just take what you want from it. If that’s sitting around and eating a sandwich in there or whatever, really don’t be intimidated by it. My reward would be to see people embrace it.”

Higher Ground is on during Sydney Festival, from January 8-25 and open from 9am to sunset. It is closed Mondays.