‘Fantasy Swan’

Many public parks around the world are home to unique works of art, and Lake Eola Park in Downtown Orlando is no exception. There’s the giant Muse of Discovery by Meg White in the form of a woman lying under a blanket of green lawn, for example, and Douwe Blumberg’s Take Flight depicts a flock of birds flying above the lake, which is beautifully illuminated at night.

Compared to these, the Fantasy Swan sculpture may not seem very special, just an ordinary statue of a girl with a swan for company—a scene one might mistakenly attribute to the famous Swan Lake ballet. It’s nearly impossible to guess what it actually depicts, however, as the piece is based on an original fantasy story authored by its donor, an Orlando local named Angi Perretti.

Perretti’s storybook The Identity of “AngiArts” is an interactive fairy-tale epic spanning over millennia, centering on a princess named Angilika who travels through time and space with her magic pet swan in search of artistic inspiration. Her story is retold on a bronze sculpture beside Fantasy Swan, in the form of an open book with 175 words on its pages.

Sculpted by Thai artist S. Hardthalae and donated to the park in 2008 as a private addition to the See Art Orlando installations, Fantasy Swan recreates the climactic scene of Perretti’s story, the magical moment when the princess arrives in Lake Eola Park, her pet swan transforming into an elegant black-necked swan.