A NEW sculpture has been installed at the Peninsula Link’s Cranbourne Road, Frankston ramp.
Compass 2023 by artist Natasha Johns-Messenger was installed last week. The steel pole sculpture stands 14 metres high and lights up after dark.
Johns-Messenger said the sculpture “responds to site – its scale, topography, light, spatial orientation, materiality and context. Engaging perceptual shifts inside simple geometric framing, my artworks aim to question our expectations of space and three-dimensional form”.
“The forms of Compass 2023 are based on the navigation pillars of north, south, east and west, the smallest semi-circle pointing due north. The sculpture’s semi-circular forms also reference a drawing compass and echo the circular freeway of some freeway off-ramps. At night, the north, south, east and west semi-circles will be lit with narrow beams missing the vertical supports to give the feeling that the arcs float above,” she said. “Utilising spatial and material conundrums, my work creates a chasm between what we think we know and what we perceive, heightening awareness. The fundamental implication here is that we all play a role in authoring our world.”
The sculpture forms part of the Southern Way McClelland Commission, a program of new sculptures alternating between sites at Skye Road and Cranbourne Road along the Peninsula Link freeway every two years.
The $300,000 commission for the sculpture was awarded last year. There will be 14 commissions through the program to 2037.
Money for the sculptures is donated by Southern Way.
Two previous sculptures paid through the program, Love Flower and Reflective Lullaby, have now returned to McClelland Gallery, Langwarrin.
First published in the Mornington News – 5 December 2023
