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

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

George Rignold’s Tidal Swimming Pool, (Private Collection), 13x22x8cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image. 

Home House (Box) Boatshed

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

Home House (Box), (Private Collection), 16x11x11cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image. 

Grotto – Stone Steps

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

Grotto – Stone Steps, (Private Collection), 16x14x10cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image. 

Vessel Vase (Kan 坎, abyss)

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

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)

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

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]

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

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)

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

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

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

Bark canoe | stone castle | concrete redoubt | show boat, (Private Collection),  20x28x20cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image. 

Valley Floor Study I

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

Valley Floor Study I, 13x13x24cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image. 

Valley Floor Study II

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

Valley Floor Study II, 8x20x20cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image. 

Valley Floor Study III

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

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

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

Ground Work [Midden]

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

Ground Work [Midden], (Powerhouse Museum Collection), 100cm. Photo by Sue Blackburn, Exact Image.

Apparition (mind’s eye ellipse) (after J.D.)

Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.
Toni Warburton, Artist. Messages from the Bays.

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

Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018

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

Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018

Valley floor garden

Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages

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)

Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artist. Artwork from Messages, 2018
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages

H.C press picnic ground and dance hall (study), Photos by Greg Piper

Boat (study)

Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Boat (study), Photos by Greg Piper

Marine Cups

Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages
Toni Warburton, Artwork, Ceramic, Messages