CUMULUS

Neil Dawson

A window on our weather from Neil Dawson. Set on a hilltop and only viewable against the sky, Cumulus provides a window on current atmospheric mood. Through it you can assess just how wild and woolly it is up there as the clouds rush by. During a decent storm the ladders disappear into the cloud so visually at least you can ascend to the heavens.

As with much of Neil‘s work this 2-dimensional piece gives the impression of being anything but and lends itself to optical illusion with the viewer often unsure of the cloud’s orientation. Add that to a moving sky and you have the recipe for a spellbinding contribution to our collection.

Being black this sculpture – despite being on a prominent site – is invisible from much of our property and from Transmission Gully Motorway, despite its proximity. For that we can thank the surrounding dark, pine tree-covered hills which effectively frame Cumulus with its background of uninterrupted sky. Indeed we got it wrong initially and built the 10 tonnes of foundations on a hilltop that provided insufficient clear sky and way too much dark background from the surrounding hills. To a disbelieving construction crew came the exclamation, “Wrong hill, cover up those foundations and start again over there please”.

Just as well we caught that mistake before the 18 metres of sculpture had been erected.