Sculpture On The Edge An 18 day art festival event at
Flaxton Gardens in the beautiful Sunshine Coast Hinterland.

Strangler Fig 2.0 is not carefully crafted from bronze or clay.

This does not mean it is without artistic, aesthetic or conceptual merit.

We recognised many strengths in this work – particularly the way it responded to and integrated itself with the patch of the site it was assigned – arguably one of the more challenging bits of real estate temporarily given to artists in this year’s event.

This only served to elevate the work. As far as site-responsiveness is concerned, it was one of only a handful of works that took considered stock of the place in which it was sited – bleeding seamlessly with its surrounds – inviting audiences to question where the work ended and the environment began.

It acted as a vessel for diverse audiences to pour their own thoughts and ideas into and refused to be prescriptive or didactic or obvious in its realisation. It surreptitiously crept into the environment – almost as if it had grown in the space (just like the work’s namesake).

And the reflective sphere atop the central sculptural element mirrored the viewers, implicating each of us in the invasion of the natural environment, which I personally took as a central part of the commentary it revealed.

Michael Brennan

Gallery Director | Noosa Regional Gallery