Environmental bas relief ....

Environmental bas relief .... This is a work of art for an outdoor setting. Months ago I had nailed it up on a outdoor section of old post and rail fence in the garden. Early in the year I was up one of the beaches on the Sunshine Coast which is north of Brisbane. I was walking along in the upper sandy section of the beach and began to find all this beautiful drift detritus:

• floating segmented breadfuit nuts to 50 mm in size ..... just beautiful tapered shapes
• small sections of bleached and sand-etched branches
• sea shells of various sizes
• White bleached and flat cuttlefish bones of various lengths
• twisted seagrass strands of various lengths
• white flattened stones to 20 mm in size
• waterworn multicoloured pebbles to 10 mm in size
• various brown - greyed leaves from flat to twisted shapes
• grey volcanic pumice to 25 mm size
• local grey banksia flower stalks
  

This was the leftover detritus that had floated in on the last very high tide. The detritus was stranded in parallel intersecting rows and left on a base of graded white sand. The sand underneath was in intersecting curves left by the ebbing tide.

I collected this detritus up in a bag with the intention of making an artwork of this small section of seaside beauty. As the artist at work, I took it home and began to work with it. It wasn't sculpture which is three dimensional but it was two dimensional ie. a bas relief. The detritus was laid out on a white canvas backing board normally used in painting. Using white wood glue which dried as a clear glue (PVC glue), I layered the detritus at an angle suggested the movement of the tide across the canvas. I was interested in of all the elements ..... the floating segmented breadfuit nuts ..... the small sections of bleached branches and shells etc. Then graded sand was sprinkled over the area to suggest the washed effect of the beach. I then nailed a frame around the canvas of old driftwood boards. This was then nailed to the section of post and rail fence.

In September this year, I took the bas relief off the fence and added and glued more small sections of bleached branches and shells with further swirls of sand. After it was all dry, I nailed back up again.

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