To the Sea of Tranquillity, was created in Tumut by Sydney artist John Petrie for Sculpture by the Sea. Photo: Gareth Carr.
A type of rock found in space during the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 70s, also distinctive to the Adelong region, is now enjoying some celebrity at the world’s largest outdoor sculpture exhibition.
Overlooking the Marks Park headland at Bondi, the rock forms part of a sculpture called To the Sea of Tranquility by Sydney-based artist John Petrie.
It sits among 100 artworks from 16 countries dotted along the two kilometres of Sydney’s Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk, all selected for the 2024 Sculpture by the Sea event from 18 October to 4 November.
Made from norite, sometimes referred to as black granite, and featuring a marble base from Wombeyan, in the NSW Southern Highlands, the sculpture’s name references the Mare Tranquillitatis or Sea of Tranquility, a lunar mare, or plain on the moon, originally mistaken for seas by early astronomers.
Norite was among the rocks collected by astronauts in the vicinity of the Sea of Tranquillity during the Apollo missions to the moon of the 1960s and 1970s and is believed to have originated from Eartch.
While it is uncommon in Australia, it can be found in Adelong, in the Snowy Valleys.
The Snowy Valleys is also home to the largest permanent sculpture collection in Australia, The Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail, an initiative of Sculpture by the Sea which has steadily grown since its inception in 2020 to include 60 sculptures by artists from 15 countries.
Queanbeyan’s Philip Spelman’s piece, Scent, at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, 2024. Photo: Daniel Varrica.
And it was here that John Petrie would travel to create this piece, which he says is inspired by the Australian landscape, crafted in the only place that had the right equipment to work with the stone, KD Stoneworks in Tumut.
From there, it was painstakingly trucked to Sydney in time for the exhibition.
John was the winner of the 2023 Aqualand Sculpture Award, an acquisitive award of $100,000, one of the most generous sculpture awards in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the most sought-after in the world.
He’s exhibited at Sculpture by the Sea 12 times since 1997.
The work of Queanbeyan artist Philip Spelman is also enjoying a hot pink moment at Sculpture by the Sea; this is his 21st year of involvement in the event.
Like all his crafted steel artworks, memorable for their vibrant colours, Spelman’s piece – Scent – merges still life imagery with geometric abstraction, using intense colour and shifting shadows to create a dynamic composition of stacked and balanced forms.
Spelman’s work is held in collections across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the USA, including the Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail at Tumbarumba and the Sculpture Forest in the Alpine Ash Walk. This marks his 21st exhibition at Bondi since 1999.
Now in its 26th year, Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi has exhibited more than 2650 sculptures by artists from 51 countries. Crowds to this year’s event were expected to exceed 450,000.
The 150-kilometre Snowy Valleys Sculpture Trail takes in the towns of Tumut, Talbingo, Tumbarumba, Batlow and Adelong and the smaller settlements of Tooma and Laurel Hill as well as various wineries in the region. A little further uphill, the small town of Khancoban is expected to be part of the mix from December.
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