This year marks the eleventh anniversary of the Birchs Bay sculpture
trail. Originally called ‘Benchmarking
Birchs Bay’, the recent name change to ‘Art Farm Birchs Bay’ reflects the expansion
of their art program, which now includes art and craft workshops and an indoor
art gallery: the Old Distillery.
I’ve visited a number of their previous trails, and have
watched it mature and develop into a diverse and thought-provoking exhibition.
Of course, there are a few of the usual twee sculpture trail offerings, such as
mosaic flowers, and stick and shell constructions. But on the whole, the
current exhibition easily rivals major public sculpture events in terms of
scope and artistic engagement with the surrounding environment.
It’s about a 45 minute walk through the bush. We initially wind
our way through the working farm, including a pear orchard, which is quite appropriately
scattered with oversized ceramic pears. After
crossing a plantation of Tasmanian native pepperberry trees, we wind our way up
to the natural bush trail. I walk with
my small dog, who seems particularly attracted to the sculptures with a
lingering smell (especially the caged oyster shells). The trail is on private land and presumably
relies on their café revenue to partly fund the initiative, but visitors are
nonetheless encouraged to bring their dogs, their kids, and a picnic. At one point I encounter a family of
picnickers (including a happy Labrador) enjoying the incredible view over the
Great Bay to Bruny Island. For awhile,
I’m followed by a family who’s playing a game of ‘guess the price of the
artwork’, with the ‘answer’ printed in the accompanying catalogue. Artwork sales are obviously important to the
exhibition’s financial sustainability, but I also have a tendency to get
distracted by price tags. As a result, I walk the rest of the trail without reference
to the catalogue, enjoying the unexpected artwork encounters sans map.
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| Dean Chatwin, Nature's Way, 2016. Image credit: the artist. |
The standout for me is Dean Chatwin’s witty installation, Nature’s Way. His sculpture mimics the design of Tasmanian
street signs with one exception: like a weathervane, a gust of wind will alter
the sign’s orientation. On one hand, the
structure is an unexpected aesthetic intrusion, but it’s also such an everyday
object that it’s comfortingly familiar, even natural. At the time of my visit,
‘Nature’s Way’ points to a barrier of bush scrub, although it could just as
easily be pointing in the direction of the working farm. We might think we can control the world
around us, but as the sign suggestions, nature will ultimately have its way.
Unlike Chatwin’s work, which deliberately stands out against
its surroundings, Sally Brown’s Web,
Net, Lace (2007) has weathered and faded over the years. The cobweb-like structure high between two
trees is easily missed, particularly if you’re buried in the sculpture map. Each year, a couple of sculptures are acquired
by the owners and remain permanently along the trail, aging sympathetically to
their surroundings. There are sculptures
by a number of fairly high-profile Tasmanian artists, such as Brown and Marcus
Tatton. Brown’s other permanent work is a field of
metal flowers dotted around the upper trail.
Like Web, Net, Lace, the
flowers are weathering and rusting, blending with the surrounding environment
despite the material’s industrial roots.
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| Mike Limb, Cello |
I’m conflicted over Mike Limb’s descriptively titled Cello.
While the subject leaves me cold, there’s a lovely relationship between the
curled strips of rusted steel around the instrument’s bridge and the scraps of
bark littered around its base. Julie
Milton’s Eucalion mimics the
surrounding environment more directly – a steel and acrylic version of the
surrounding natural grasses. I also
enjoy Keith Smith’s Cuckoo Nest made
from ‘beach float-some’, including shoes, rope, fishing nets, and hats,
although I wonder if the awkwardly-located rusted metal birds are really
necessary. The sound and light elements
of Edith Perrenot’s towering sculpture aren’t working on my visit, but I’m
nonetheless intrigued by the cheeky figures peering out from the golden
vestibules.
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| Keith Smith’s Cuckoo Nest (with my dog Pip) |
We have a couple of high-profile art philanthropists in
Tasmania who understandably receive a lot of media attention, but we’re also
lucky to have a lot of smaller, privately-run art initiatives, such as Art Farm
Birchs Bay. I urge you to check it out.
This review was originally published in the May edition of Warp Magazine.
