Other Commissions 

Taking Flight

Taking Flight was commissioned by Aurecon: a world-class engineering, management and specialist technical servicing group. Their brief was to create an inspirational wall work for their Brisbane Office’s Reception Area. ‘Aurecon’ means golden thought.

In the work Waterson aimed to capture a ‘golden’ or precious moment evoking a sense of action and growth; similar to birds alighting from a forest or the flourish of blooms in spring. The work is made from folded aluminium. The folds are quite extreme; rather than aluminium it appears to be folded effortlessly from paper. The result has a beautiful duality: a sense of randomness, dimension and action underpinned by a hidden three-part system.

Photographs J.Linkins

Accumulation

Waterson was commissioned, along with 14 other established Queensland artists, to respond to iconic Ipswich Houses as part of Ipswich’s 150 Year Celebrations.

Waterson’s house portrait of Rhossilli titled Accumulation draws upon her architectural experience, as well as her historical and experiential impressions of the house. In the process of coming to know Rhossilli, Waterson worked through various ways of perceiving its space, light and form. Waterson explains the process of making the artwork began with drawings based on architectural plans and photographs of the house, in which she reduced the front elevation to its essential horizontal and vertical lines.

“Just as it had during the restoration, the characteristic façade emerged as the key signifier of the house – it’s face – which I set about interpreting and representing in the work, Accumulation.” Christina Waterson

Each single piece of hand-cut paper was meticulously arranged, aligned, and tightly stacked and to holds information that forms part of the original elevations and details of the house. Without each piece stacked against the other, the work is meaningless without the next. The end result is reminiscent of rotary card files or the mechanical movement from a music box. Intuitively we read the artwork as a set: as we approach the work, the vague form of a house appears like an apparition and in a moment the distinctive form of Rhossilli is revealed. Shift a little to the left or right and the image of Rhossilli is lost.

“Walking through Rhossilli with the owner I was struck by the process of restoration he had undertaken… sifting through records, photography and house fragments to re-find the original Rhossilli. No single complete record documented it as a whole. I was moved by the house’s hidden fragility: its sense of place could have been lost during restoration. I hoped to express this fragility in the house portrait.” Christina Waterson

Accumulation (Rhossilli) questions the completeness of memory and threshold of recognition. Via parts; record, accumulated memories, uncovered fragments and stories; the house and its fragile sense of place are re-found.

Commissioned by The Ipswich Gallery
Photography Jon Linkins

Plexa Projection on The William Jolly Bridge

Plexa is one of a myriad of striking patterns from Waterson’s Komodo Series of hand woven sculptural objects and wall reliefs. Projected here on the William Jolly Bridge in Brisbane for the Brisbane City Council’s BACI Festival 2015, Plexa maps movement and growth over time bringing to light the hidden structure and form of the bridge. Variation in line and arrangement give subtle changes to the pattern’s visual density and implicit meaning. As with the screens in the Komodo Series its visual repetition, and spatial and rhythmic qualities draw the viewer into an aesthetic state of bliss or groove.

Commissioned by the Brisbane City Council for BACI Festival 2015
Artwork Illustration for Projection Christina Waterson
Photography Christina Waterson