Messages from the Bays, 2018
What the land has lost (container for borrowed views), 27x53x140cm, ceramic painted and stained with pigments and glazes, 2018. Photo by Greg Piper
Wide awake before dawn, somehow not in my room in Marrickville, but immersed in a swirling view of Powderhulk Bay seen from the ‘picture window’ of my family home at Seaforth. Uncannily this sensation of being elsewhere was repeated on subsequent mornings. It seemed to me that the shape of this mind’s eye vision was elliptical.
Through art and research, I sounded the gaze. The abyss of limpid water became a portal that returned me to the shores of Middle Harbour to follow pathways to stories of the Cammeraygal and Birrabirrigal people, of Bangalay bark canoes, plentiful game and shellfish, freshwater streams, waterfalls. A convivial abode contested by European arrivals.
For the Birrabirrigal culture, sandstone formed shelters and galleries for their rock engravings. Europeans laboured the stone into boundary walls, rockeries, tidal pools and steps to the water’s edge.
Messages from the Bays acknowledges continuing Aboriginal cultural traditions of taking care of place and draws from romantic interventions of various colonial visionaries and the insights and actions of environmentalists, scientists and land care workers through layers of time and habitation.
© Toni Warburton 2nd March 2018
George Rignold’s Tidal Swimming Pool
George Rignold’s Tidal Swimming Pool, (Private Collection), 13x22x8cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Home House (Box) Boatshed
Home House (Box), (Private Collection), 16x11x11cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Grotto – Stone Steps
Grotto – Stone Steps, (Private Collection), 16x14x10cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Vessel Vase (Kan 坎, abyss)
Vessel Vase (Kan 坎, abyss), (Private Collection), 18x13x12cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Do You Know The Way to The Bay? (for Beverly Blacklock)
Do You Know The Way to The Bay? (for Beverly Blacklock), (Private Collection), 20x28x21cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
VIEW [after a ‘two face’ costume by Thea Rowe]
VIEW [after a ‘two face’ costume by Thea Rowe], (Private Collection), 29x24x11cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Animal Vegetable Mineral, spongia compressa (for Dr Robert Grant)
Animal Vegetable Mineral, spongia compressa (for Dr Robert Grant), (Private Collection), 38x22x25cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Bark canoe | stone castle | concrete redoubt | show boat
Bark canoe | stone castle | concrete redoubt | show boat, (Private Collection), 20x28x20cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Valley Floor Study I
Valley Floor Study I, 13x13x24cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Valley Floor Study II
Valley Floor Study II, 8x20x20cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Valley Floor Study III
Valley Floor Study III, (Private Collection), 10x13x28cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Messages from the bays, Installation views at Mu Gallery. Photos by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image
Ground Work [Midden]
Ground Work [Midden], (Powerhouse Museum Collection), 100cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
Apparition (mind’s eye ellipse) (after J.D.)
Apparition (mind’s eye ellipse) (after J.D.), (Private Collection), 6x46x36cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.
What the land has lost
What the land has lost (container for borrowed views), 27x53x140cm, ceramic painted and stained with pigments and glazes, 2018. Photo by Greg Piper
Grotto
Grotto, 30x40x27cm, glazed ceramic (private collection). Photos by Greg Piper
Mortal coil (kan, 坎, abyss)
Mortal coil (kan, 坎, abyss), 30x40x27cm, glazed ceramic. Photos by Greg Piper
Grotto, stone stair
Valley floor garden
Valley floor garden (idyll for a marine park), 16x40cm, ceramic painted with engobes pigments and glazes. Photos by Greg Piper
H.C press picnic ground and dance hall (study)
H.C press picnic ground and dance hall (study), Photos by Greg Piper