AN IMPOSING new sculpture has appeared in the city.

Artist Alex Chinneck has unveiled his most complex and ambitious sculpture to date at Circus Street in Brighton.

Titled A Spring In Your Step, the new site-specific artwork takes the form of a spiral staircase springing apart in three directions across the facade of a building in the new neighbourhood developed by regeneration specialist U+I.

The galvanised steel sculpture is 25 metres high and scales the side of a key architectural elevation at the heart of the square, creating a bold backdrop for the new event space.

Alex Chinneck said: “A Spring In Your step took three years to complete, weighs four tonnes, is 25 metres tall and follows a non-repeating, expanding and contracting helical form, making it my most complex sculpture to date.”

He said the piece was conceived in direct response to the location and seeks to contribute to the "energetic creative atmosphere" envisaged for it.

Following the form of a spiral staircase at its base, the structure uncoils as it rises upwards and outwards over Circus Street’s central courtyard.

Its three steel ribbons burst apart with sculptural energy, introducing movement into the volume above the courtyard while helping to animate and enliven the space below.

Best known for creating ambitious public sculptures on an architectural scale, Alex has previously been invited to create flagship projects for London Design Festival and Milan Design Week.

Past projects include a sliding house in Margate, a hovering stone building on Covent Garden Piazza, an inverted electricity pylon on Greenwich Peninsula and an unzipping building in Milan.

Uniting the disciplines of art, design and architecture, his work is said to challenge understanding of familiar objects and materials to create surreal sculptures that transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

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