Morphic Resonance #3 is part of a series of small sculptures made of wood scavenged from the bush, and repurposed plastic gravestone flowers. Both these materials carry their own rich histories.
Every day I walk in the bushland surrounding our property in Central Victoria and collect the wooden debris, remnants of a fallen forest, that look to me like nests or sacred vessels, containers for something secret and regenerative. I stain the wood black to look like it has been ravaged by bushfire and add my deconstructed plastic flowers, which I cut up to resemble fungus. I invoke living fungi because they are astonishingly versatile organisms. They can digest pollution, be eaten as food, made into medicine, induce hallucinatory visions, contribute oxygen to the Earth’s atmosphere and convert rocks into living soil. Morphic Resonance #3 conveys a message of regenerative hope. There is however a paradox in the appearance of these objects for they appear both beautiful and sinister.
wood, artificial flowers
16 x 6.5 x 7 cm
Finalist
Diane Thompson, in conversation with Professor Ian Howard, discusses her work Morphic Resonance #3. Recorded on 6 November 2021 at the 20th Anniversary Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize exhibition, Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf.
Judges of the 20th Anniversary Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize: Dr Lara Strongman (Director Curatorial and Digital, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia), Joanna Capon OAM (Art Historian, Curator and Industrial Archaeologist) and Jenny Kee AO (Artist and Fashion Designer).
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