the subterranean emerges on the surface of water’s memory

A forgotten spring that once welled up on the site finds its memory as it glistens and flows on the surface of seven large sculptured sandstone rocks. In an archaeological inversion, sandstone rocks emerge from a neatly paved public square. Scattered across Farrer place the sculptures appear as abstract memories of a rock strata lying just beneath the surface. The sculptures are sited in dynamic relation to each other. They come alive as water and reflected light dance over their grainy surfaces.

A contemplation of both the cultural heritage and the natural environment on which Sydney is built, the artwork is bold in its scale and assured in the simple juxtaposition of natural elements. Using raw material quarried from the area Rock Spring works within the context of a local cultural tradition of stonemasonry and a western sculptural tradition. Sydney sandstone, one of the finest quality sandstones in the world was used extensively in the last century on major architectural projects such as the Lands Department and the Department of Agriculture buildings adjacent to the site. The contemporary Governor Macquarie and Philip Towers to the east in contrast to Victorian ornateness present an elegant and minimal use of sandstone.

Whilst the form of the sculptural installation is organic, the rock and the water do not attempt a precise imitation of nature. Rather the sculptural approach taken extends and plays with a cultural tradition of carving stone to look like rock, a centuries old genre reaching its most expressive height during the Baroque period. The rock bases or pedestals of Bernini’s ‘Fountain of the Four Rivers’ in Rome or the extensive abstracted rock ledges of the Trevi Fountain or the Fountain of Diana at Caserta for example show a bold blocky carving appropriate for the marble used. Using a much softer material, Rock Spring invents a new ‘naturalism’, an abstraction of nature.

The relationship of the elements deployed creates a space of reverie that offers a multitude of individual contemplations about the site - it’s fluvial /geomorphic natural history and its cultural overlays. In its fanciful forms and their apparently random positioning Rock Spring seeks to transform the order of the site by reworking and representing the very material used in the surrounding buildings. A foil to formality, this artwork presents a fluid counterpoise to hard urbanism reminding us through the poetics of the forms of subterranean layers long since hidden from view.