Decomposition, 2015
Piano keys, macropod bones and roses
Dimensions variable, around 170 x 100 x 45 cm
Piano keys, macropod bones and roses
Dimensions variable, around 170 x 100 x 45 cm
Installation views
Capital Chemist Art Award, Tuggeranong Arts Centre, ACT
Capital Chemist Art Award, Tuggeranong Arts Centre, ACT
There is a strange beauty in natural decay and in that of seemingly eternal, classic objects like a piano. The end of the life of something that brought music, beauty and wonder into the world is both tragic and symbolic, for all will return to dust. This piece has tied up in it the voices and lives of the people who bought and played the piano these parts were rescued from, and it carries with it, audible as if in a dream, the sounds of the instrument itself played over the course of its life of 76 years (original, hand-written inscription).
The voice of this wild and beautiful land also resonates from the remnants of roo and rose, integrating the natural, the cultivated and the cultural into one work. It was made from the land, and is returning to the land (is it dying, or is it coming to life?) along with the other spirits that walk it. In its becoming a work of art, we are again prolonging its life and allowing it to have a new story.
'Decomposition' was on display at
Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Capital Chemist Art Award, 2015
Aarwun Gallery, Elemental, 2016
ANU Foyer Gallery, Random, 2017