Rockpool

completed 2022
CLIENT: BAY PAVILIONS – ARTS + AQUATIC IN BATEMANS BAY

This work is a collaboration with Cathy Drew. We conceived and developed it together for the Bay Pavilions – Arts + Aquatic in Batemans Bay. Rockpool is a sculptural placemaking work designed to be used as a meeting and seating place. The work’s continuous looping form acts as a gathering place outside the main foyer and can seat up to a dozen people. It’s a discreet work that rewards close interaction.

Conceptually, Rockpool is influenced by local geography. The texture of its surface is cast from coastal rockpools of the Eurobodalla region and the work suggests carefree time spent exploring rockpools — that liminal zone between land and sea at the edge of the solid world.

Responsive to the tide, rockpools are exposed and submerged in an unending natural cycle, suggested in the continuous looping form of the work.  Programmable lighting is employed to create a tidal effect: a slow rising and falling of internal lighting projecting out onto the surrounding ground plane through penetrations in the sculpture. External lighting renders the sculpture as a projection surface, transforming its static state with a new emotional language.

We opted to make the work in cast aluminium complementing the timber of the building’s architecture with a material that projects a sense of solidity while also being capable of capturing great delicacy and detail.

Artists: Mark McClelland and Cathy Drew
Design development: Seaton McKeon
Casting: Crawfords Casting
Lighting design: Sam Hopkins & Stephen Swift
Photography: Chris Tague