Please join us on Wednesday, October 29 at 5:30 PM at Second Draught for the opening celebration of Eye On Art: Round 5 featuring artists Joel Zika and Luisa Duarte.

Zika’s work merges digital media and immersive environments, exploring perception and presence through light and motion. Duarte’s abstract compositions investigate geometry, color, and the emotional resonance of space. Together, their installations bring new energy and dialogue to the Ion’s ever-evolving creative landscape.

The Eye On Art program at the Ion, Houston’s innovation hub, reimagines the former Sears building through a series of site-specific installations. The display windows, once iconic retail showcases, now serve as vibrant beacons along Fannin and Main Streets. They invite the public to experience the intersection of art, innovation, and community while celebrating Houston’s creative talent.

About the Art

Houston based Australian artist Joel Zika’s latest work uses digital technology to explore our relationship with ornament in public space.  

Acanthus is an installation work featuring digital sculptures and holographic projections that audiences can control. The unique combination of technology in the work allows particpants to manipulate richly decorative sculptures as if they were flowers in a garden.

This work continues Zika’s exploration into the way we communicate through our built environment, using Victorian floral decoration to create an immersive environment that encourages and involves its inhabitants.

Urban Sentinels is a site-specific installation composed of four three-dimensional sculptures derived from my abstract geometric works on paper. These sentinels are not traditional protectors of territory or warriors in defense—they are quiet observers, guardians of presence who offer reflection rather than control.

In the imagined harmonious world, a sentinel is not a figure of defense, but a presence of care—one who holds space, bridges transitions, and watches not for danger, but for meaning. These sculptural forms step into that role within the urban landscape. They are not barriers, but beacons—custodians of invisible thresholds where the personal and public intersect.

Rooted in architectural language, the forms echo the rigor of design while embracing intuitive color and rhythm. Their vibrant planes and angles interact with their surroundings, creating moments of stillness within the city’s constant motion. In a time, shaped by urgency, these sentinels invite a pause—a space to breathe, contemplate, and reconnect.

Installed within a large window, their “home” is framed by a green-painted mural reminiscent of urban vegetation. A smaller painted window offers a visual companion, while a suspended mobile—evoking the clouds above the city—adds a playful, dreamlike presence. By night, projection mapping animates the sculptures, transforming them into illuminated vessels of memory and imagination.

These sentinels do not guard against harm—they guard possibility. They defend the imagination and open space for poetic presence. Ultimately, Urban Sentinels is not merely an installation, but a living architecture of hope, attention, and belonging. In their stillness, they speak—softly yet profoundly—reminding us to see, to remember, and to dream.