With the growing awareness and concerns about environmental despoliation, climate change and the fragile interdependence between humans with their natural environment, this living bonsai sculpture highlights the problematic relationship between humans, technology and the natural world.
The artist symbolically deconstructs the natural processes of carbon-based plant growth, photosynthesis and transpiration by representing these natural functions with an array of recycled instruments and mechanical devices of metal, glass and plastic. The centrepiece is the living organism itself, an Australian native Ficus bonsai tree, which here represents all trees as nature's own efficiently functioning carbon storage and carbon dioxide conversion machines. With this work the artist seeks to raise awareness of the incomparable beauty and sublime functionality of trees and living organisms.
Alternative title: Organic, Environmentally-Sustainable, Regenerating, Solar-Powered, Water-Fuelled, Earth-Enriched, Oxygen-Producing, Carbon Sequestration and CO2 Conversion Machine
Courtesy of Beowulf Galleries
bonsai, gauges, metal tubing, other instruments
67 x 46 x 52 cm
WSSP Winner; Finalist
Judges of the 2012 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize: Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM (Trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW and Director of the Transfield Foundation), Natalie Wilson (Assistant Curator of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of NSW) and Professor Janice Reid AM (Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Sydney and Trustee of the Art Gallery of NSW).
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