Lacuna

Lacuna consists of ten large-scale graphite rubbings created jointly with Virginia Hilyard during a 2016 artists’ residency at Bundanon, NSW.
 
We were drawn to the utilitarian man-made structures – water tanks, sandstone hearths, a well – that are scattered throughout the gardens and paddocks around the homestead. These mundane structures of cement, metal, stone and timber seemed to sit outside the heritage narrative of the site. All are associated with fire and water, elemental forces that have significantly shaped the Bundanon property and the surrounding Shoalhaven River landscape for centuries.
 
The word lacuna derives from the Latin word lacus meaning lake, pond, lagoon, ditch or hole. Today, lacuna carries meaning across diverse disciplines of enquiry. It can be an unstudied area in a scientific discipline, amnesia in psychology, a silence in music and a cavity in anatomy.
 
Through the act of making the full-size impressions – or rubbings – of these objects, unseen textures, spaces and cavities, dips and holes were revealed.