ART BUILT-IN PUBLIC ART PROJECT, AIRLIE BEACH LAGOON
RESONANCE – Oxford English Dictionary – Echo, Reflection of…
550 x 440 x 260cm, mirror polished stainless steel
This sculptural installation is a transposition of an earlier environmental installation entitled Echo, constructed of thick Fan palm stalks embedded in sand at low tide in the immediacy of my home environment at Hydeaway Bay. It ‘echoed’ the form of Rattray Island, a perfect pyramidal shape when viewed from my home.
The installation, is comprised of 3 large (2.6 m high) and 2 small (1.7m high) inverted “V” shaped forms of highly polished stainless steel rising from a flat, grassed plinth.
In accordance with the Design Themes and Concepts suggested in the Commissioning Brief for the Airlie Beach Lagoon Public Art Project the work was to be permanent, durable, safe and conceptually relevant to the proposed usage of the site.
Retaining the essential structure and abstraction of the original work I have used highly polished stainless steel and greatly enlarged the scale to create an installation which is sufficiently open-ended to allow the viewer their interpretation whilst making reference to:
- Islands – the replication of the form represents the multiplicity of islands of the Whitsunday Group with their varying heights and landmasses
- Sails
- Rudimentary dwellings of early indigenous inhabitants
- People as part of the local cultural environment –the varying but “human” scale of the component parts of the installation suggests a family grouping designed to “read” this way from distance anywhere in the lagoon site.
Light, shadows, reflections of people and the surrounding environment, reflections of the work in the Lagoon, a playful and interactive arrangement of the component parts are all considered elements of the work.
Local architect, James Riddell, acted as my technical advisor in this project.
Peter Anderson of Classic Marine was the fabricator.
