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TarraWarra Primavera Commissioned for courtyard of TarraWarra Museum of Art Healesville, Victoria, Australia |
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| Original Drawing |
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Tarrawarra Primavera is a playful Antipodean
retelling of Botticelli’s
Three Graces from his Primavera painting in the Uffizi Gallery. Swathed in an overflowing, high-gloss version of the local bounty, these sisters perch on their pedestals while ribbons appear to lash around them and dance in the breeze. These solid yet elegant bindings tie and coif their ripe harvest, wrapping and cross-gartering the muses. Like obedient prize-winning poodles, these knowing sheep gaze smugly at the viewer, and each other. Located at Tarrawarra Museum of Art, and set among the minimal Etruscan colonnade of its courtyard, these sculptures will appear to dance through the space like Maenads or Minoan priestesses, once again referring to the ancient cultural lineage that so inspired Botticelli. The sculptures appear to be highly-glazed majolica, a ceramic which alludes to a rich European art history. They are, in fact, completely contemporary in construction, utilising polymer cement and synthetic glazes which make new and unique statements possible. These Three Graces, and the harvest they bear, are the inheritors of the legacy of the jumbuck in Australian art, from Tom Roberts’ traditional merinos to the gritty sheep of Les Kossatz. The jumbucks of Tarrawarra Primavera make a new statement. Their wry smirks and manicured demeanours belie any notion of drought or hardship on the land and reflect on a privileged, civilized culture and the pastoral bounty of their station. |
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Internal Structure and
Botticelli Primavera |
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