New Moon

Coledale rock platform, 15 October 2012

Our individual experience of the world is unique. We make sense of it through the stories we tell and are told. 

Pool, the Alchemy of Blue was exhibited at Wollongong City Gallery from April 12 to June 16, 2013. As  part of the development of the work, during different cycles of the tide and particular phases of the moon – the new, waxing, full and waning – I invited members of the local community to join me in the construction of variations of a circle moon on the rock platform beside the pool in Coledale. The first of these was constructed on 31st August 2012, for a full blue moon – the second full moon to occur during August. New Moon was constructed on 15th October 2012, coinciding with the new moon.

The pool is manmade but set within the rock platform it appears part of the natural landscape. Parts of the pool that have broken away reappear battered and sea-washed among sand and rocks (to be pocketed), reminding us that the sea is wearing, every thing returns to the elemental, we too will return to the earth. Pool, the Alchemy of Blue isn’t about ruin but about transformation; abstract concepts are rendered in a concrete material; weight becomes light; concrete appears to float; the impossible becomes possible and the intimacy of individual pieces of concrete seem to belie the immensity of the pool, the rock platform, the stretching sea and vast sky.

Images: Bernie Fisher