For the 2008 Undergraduate Degree Show at Sydney College of the Arts I presented three works under the collective heading, Collected (2008). These works were linked by themes of meditation and maturation, struggle and spiritual growth.
Quercus/Augustus is a meditation on the tree as a motif for ascension. This tree encompasses many ideas, like Beuys’ 7000 Oaks Project, the biblical tree of life and my own personal experience of trees as a place of refuge. The first part of the name, Quercus, is the Latin word for oak tree and the second part of the name, Augustus, means revered or exalted.
Untitled (Seed) uses the bed as a metaphor for the womb/grave, with the rock as a stand in for a person and for my mental state, both a grave stone and a seed. The metamorphic nature of the volcanic stone, basalt, is something longed for and another reference to Beuys. The rock is a marker for a missing tree, perhaps present but unseen. The basalt is a seed, a beginning and the name is a reference to Acconci’s Seedbed.
Axis Mundi is a diagram of the island purgatory with it’s levels of atonement. At the summit is the garden of Eden, innocence restored. The name of the work refers to the point of contact between the high and low realms.
Tom Isaacs 