Natalie King, enterprise professor at the Victorian College of Art, has chosen a favourite local artwork for The Age’s occasional series.
I chose Garden Islands because it’s Kathy Temin’s first public artwork and I was intrigued by how someone who works with soft sculpture would render something for outdoors in the public domain, with the requirements of being sturdy, hardy and permanent.
It’s a squat cluster of trees, made from cast aluminium. I like how there’s a gathering of five, like a family, and then there’s a solo one nearby, a stray or an aberrant one that sits on a base. The trees also reference the topiary and gardens in the Stonnington landscape, so Temin is drawing on the vicinity and nearby habitat.
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The head of Fine Art at Monash University, Temin has just been appointed to produce a new public art commission as part of the Selwyn Street precinct in Elsternwick, near the Holocaust Museum, looking at the history of survivors; she is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. It extends her work on remembering and memorials.
Read the full article by Kerrie O’Brien in the Brisbane Times.