Public Art

It's been hot and steamy up here in Far North Queensland for the past few months. The monsoon season is not my ideal working environment, but time waits for no one and there is much to be done. Having recently been awarded another public art commission, I have been hard at it, working to complete 'Telescopus' before travelling to Miami USA to attend SAMA - the Society of American Mosaic Artists, with fellow mosaicist/collaborator, Helen Bodycomb of Melbourne. Telescopus is a 3D sculpture of a mangrove whelk which is a conical mollusc common on the mudflats surrounding Cairns. It is made from vitreous glass tiles forming a representative colourfield of banding, together with hand knapped Chillagoe marble that references East and West Cape linkage through Indigenous food sources and the marble deposits of Chillagoe.
Working on large projects can do your head in, after laying 50,000 tesserae and most of them individually, I certainly feel worn out. The hardest bits were the upsidedown areas as I would often discover I had been laying on the odd shard of glass(ouch!), and the glue residue that seemed to coat my body for the last month.
Anyway, 500 hours later it is almost complete and soon will be installed on the Cairns Esplanade to add to that beautiful area. I dedicate the work to my wife Louise who is a marine biologist, she inspires me, helped me on the project and puts up with my long absences when I am working those long hours in the studio.