EXHIBITION NOTES
Sculpture in the Botanic Gardens and Watt Space Gallery
Twenty four artists explore, challenge and interrogate the dialogue that has long existed between architectural sculptural form and the natural environment for this exhibition at the Hunter Region Botanic Gardens. Choosing their own site within which to work among the 130 hectares nestled on the lower reaches of the Hunter River at Heatherbrae, site and its specifics are at the core of the developed work.

The primary inspiration from the external large-scale work extends the visual narrative from the sculptures nestled in the dense natural terrain to those in the mediated gallery environment. Each artist was invited to develop interventions into the vast external spaces and these have been wrought into domestic scale sculptures as maquettes or companion pieces to the in situ works for exhibition at Watt Space Gallery.

Text: Gillean Shaw - Art Curator
University Galleries I University of Newcastle

Exhibition locations:
Watt Space Gallery + Hunter Region Botanic Gardens
Exhibition dates: 23 July - 13 September 2025
Launch 01: Watt Space Gallery: Thursday 31 July from 5.30 pm
Launch 02: Hunter Region Botanic Gardens: Saturday 2 August from 1 pm
Websites: Watt Space Gallery   Hunter Region Botanic Gardens

Solar tracker design+test (video triptych)
2025. 3 channel digital video, aluminium tripods, timber, media players, network hub, monitors and cables
Size: Height: 122cm, width: 246cm, depth: 69cm

Solar tracker design+test (video triptych) - Detail: 'Manual-assist mode'
2025. 3 channel digital video, aluminium tripods, timber, media players, network hub, monitors and cables
Size: Height: 122cm, width: 246cm, depth: 69cm




Solar tracker
2025. Recycled objects, painted steel, aluminium, recyclable plastic and timber
Size: Height: 137.5cm, width: 94cm, depth: 84cm

Description
Exploring the relationship between planetary cycles and environments, the ‘Solar tracker’ sculpture is specifically designed to structurally acknowledge the site on which it is placed. The lower component consists of an equatorial sundial with its central axis aligned to the earth’s axis of rotation, in other words at an angle that matches the latitude of its location.

The upper arm and dome element balanced at the pinnacle of the tripod structure is regularly positioned in such a way that at solar noon (when the sun is at its highest position in the sky) a circle of light appears in the centre of the triangular shadow cast onto the attached translucent dome.

Combined, these sculptural elements effectively draw attention to the subtle changes in the daily and seasonal motion of the sun across the sky. In doing so, this intervention may provide insight into the implications of these changes on the observed natural environment surrounding the work.

Exhibiting Artists:
Tracie Bertram :: Laura Bishop :: Max Blanch :: Andy Devine :: Doug Heslop :: Tom Ireland :: Fiona Lee + Aaron Crowe :: Kelly Ann Lees :: Louisa Magrics :: Vlase Nikoleski :: Jon Pryer :: Ron Royes :: Greg Salter :: Kris Smith :: Shellie Smith :: Lezlie Tilley :: Peter Tilley :: John Turier :: Trevor Weekes :: Bridget Whitehead :: Graeme Wilson :: Patricia Wilson Adams :: Dean Winter