Four Mountains sculptors have been selected to be part of an exhibition at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney.
Selena Siefert and Chris Wellwood’s first collaborative piece, Kolorhaus, is one of the works that will be displayed in the cemetery from August 26.
Kolorhaus is a large work that weighs about 400 kilograms and will require a large flat-topped truck to transport.
Siefert, a mosaicist from Wentworth Falls, and Wellwood, a stained glass artist from Katoomba, created Kolorhaus together over about eight months.
“The idea is you are immersed in colour and that almost creates a spiritual experience,” said Siefert. “It’s meant to have a feeling of uplifting you through colour.”
Siefert said it was the first time in the exhibition for the two of them.
“They told me, ‘we don’t want any angels’,” she said, laughing.
Glenbrook artist Neil Laredo has been chosen in the cemetery exhibition for the third time. His work, Balance II, is made of timber using traditional Japanese joinery techniques.
“It’s all put together with mortice and tenon joints – there’s no actual screw fixings,” he said.
“That’s a big part of the work because I’m looking at the process, as do the Japanese, as the integral part of making anything.”
“The work itself looks at landscape and has a lot to do with time and space,” Laredo said.
“The elements are the process itself, the actual making of it, and the elements of time and space which are looking at the landscape.”
Laredo said Rookwood offered “a lot of interesting aspects” for an artist.
The other exhibiting artist is Helen Sturgess from Leura. Her work, The Bones of my Grief Laid Bare, appears a perfect fit for a cemetery.
“It’s about the complexity of grief, which can involve anger or feelings of abandonment or futility, raging against death,” she said.
She holds plaster in her hands and forms a fist to make a solid piece.
“It’s about the futility of holding on to that rage … and letting it go.”
There will be at least 730 of the “bones” when the work is finished – one for every day of the year in each hand.
Sturgess said the work had its origins in 2001 when she was studying in London.
“It was in response to how I felt about Britain entering the war against Iraq at the time without waiting for the UN. It was anger and frustration about that …. When this [Rookwood] came up all these years later and it was about grief, I thought those things would work really well.”
Hidden: A Rookwood Sculpture Walk is on from August 26 to September 24. The free exhibition marks the 150th year of the cemetery.