For the exhibition Wunderbox (28 November 2008 -15 February 2009), this work was displayed with the following label.

The artist as collector, recycler, and natural historian, Christine Hellyar has never subscribed to the idea that sculptures should be grand and singular objects. The word ‘sculpture’ seems inadequate to describe many of her works, which look like artefacts imported into the Gallery from some other time and place. With their weathered natural forms, her artworks remind us of the vast cycles of change and transformation that govern the life of things. But they also mark the distance between those cycles and the experience of contemporary gallery-goers, as we peer in through glass at objects whose names and functions we scarcely recognise.

Purchased, 1999
Reproduced with permission
Mixed media
1620 x 985 x 187mm
99/254.1-214
1989-1990

Collection tags

cupboards, furniture, hats, plates (dishes), seashell, skeleton and skeleton components, skulls, white (color)