5:45pm 18/02/2020 bench seat
(2020)
Medium
polypropylene, red gum (E.camaldulensis), copper
Measurements
80.0 × 90.0 × 356.0 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2021
© Damien Wright. Photo: Kristoffer Paulsen
Gallery location
Gallery 10
Level 2, NGV Australia
About this work
The shimmering slab of river red gum that comprises this bench was cut from a ten-thousand-year-old tree excavated from a quarry on Yorta Yorta Country in Victoria’s Goulburn Murray region. When timber is buried for so long it is starved of oxygen and saturated with iron and silica. The oxidised material that results is part timber and part fossil. Buried deep down in the ground for millions of years, plants, trees and animal matter can transform further into organic compounds, including crude oil, a fossil fuel. Oil is a key ingredient in the polypropylene used for the ubiquitous, long-lasting plastic chairs embedded in this work.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Melbourne, Victoria
Accession Number
2021.112
Department
Contemporary Design and Architecture