Artist: Braddon Snape
Artwork Name: Cardinal Point
Medium: stainless steel, mild steel, coal
Date Created: 1997
Cardinal Point represents the four major directions on a compass: in this case indicating not only the geographical, but also the historical and cultural significance of the site. The sculpture’s topmost symbol, a west cardinal marker, indicates (in sailing terms) that the safe side is west of the mark. The horizontal surface represents the lake and below the flowing metal rods suggest seepage into the lake and hidden currents. The coal at the base symbolises the final form for all organic life as well as reflecting the industrial history of the region.
Dr Braddon Snape is a nationally recognised Newcastle (Australia) based artist who specialises in three-dimensional practice including large-scale public artworks. Over the past 27 years Snape has developed a practice utilising a diverse range of media that now encompasses sculpture, installation, video, and performance, earning Snape a reputation for conceptually rich works revealed through a minimal aesthetic and an astute understanding and sensitivity to materials, media, and site. His current practice interrogates a dangerously exciting and new method of inflating steel. This performative process developed whilst researching for his PhD gives Snape’s work a renewed freedom, where it reveals a delicate dialogue between control and chance that has been aptly described as Action Sculpture. Snape’s recent addition of crafted light has added another dimension to his ever-evolving practice.
Gift of the artist through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, 2008.