Acclaimed Australian artist Donna Marcus has been selected to create a striking cast-bronze artwork that will frame the entrance to the new premium Croydon Station.
The public artwork, titled Bloom, is in Marcus’s signature style of repurposing everyday household objects as modular sculptures, taking inspiration from Croydon’s natural environment and bustling multicultural community, while also paying tribute to the region’s agricultural heritage.
The two works, measuring about 1.2 metres and 1.5 metres tall, each comprise 12 cone-like shapes forming large spherical forms and will be positioned in 2 planter beds near the main station entrance.
The Brisbane-based artist, who has been working with aluminium kitchenware for more than 30 years, credits a pudding bowl found in Croydon’s Vinnies shop as the starting point for Bloom. Humble kitchen items such as bowls, lids, jelly moulds and egg poachers will be used to form Bloom’s conical shapes, cast in bronze to create the final sculptural works.
“The smaller sculptural component represents the bud, with its tighter whorled patterns, blooming to the larger work,” Marcus said.
“I was really thrilled to see the (local) op shops still had lots of aluminium pieces. It’s always so interesting to see what is discarded as communities and cultural practices change. Each piece always comes with a story.
“It’s lovely to be able to memorialise the little throw-away things that have once been so important to people’s lives. The seemingly insignificant often looms large in memory.
Capturing this and making it literally large in public space is an important part of this work.”
While each item might be “insignificant” as a stand-alone object, Marcus said Bloom’s range of source materials reflected Croydon’s transition from its orcharding past - kitchenware used for puddings and sweets – to a more diverse community contributing a “cultural richness beyond the 1950s Anglosphere”.
“Public works are very site specific. It’s very important to understand and respond to the local environment and community history,” she said.
Marcus, whose public artworks can be found nationally and internationally, also drew “unexpected inspiration” from native Yellow Gumnut and Plane Tree seed pods she collected on a site visit.
While the seeds’ round shape is apparent in the sculptures’ spherical shape, the contrast between native and introduced flora helped to influence Bloom’s broader exploration of “then and now”, both culturally and environmentally.
“The idea is that they (the sculptures) look like they are planted, so they go from industrial forms to organic forms that act as welcoming gate posts," Marcus said.
The warm tones of the cast bronze were also intended to complement the landscaping throughout the station precinct.
The sculptures will be fabricated in Brisbane, before being transported to site later this year.
The new premium Croydon Station opened to passengers this month, featuring two entrances and light-filled concourses, stairs and lifts to elevated platforms, toilets and a waiting room.
Works will continue throughout spring to complete the new Croydon Transport Hub and landscaping, featuring more than 70,000 new trees, shrubs and grasses.
Images supplied by Donna Marcus and Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert.
November 28, 2024
