International Art | Sculpture
Satyr with wineskin cast 19th century
after UNKNOWN ROMAN
Vera Möller
‘Water: A rising tide’
Vera Möller is deeply fascinated by the natural world. She looks closely at underwater and intertidal life, as well as fungi, moss and microorganisms invisible to the naked eye. She first trained in biology, studying the freshwater ecology of Bavaria in her native Germany before making the wide and varied landscapes of Australia her home.
Vera Möller / Germany/ Australia b.1955 / vestibulia 2019, installed for ‘Water’ at QAGOMA, 2019 / Modelling material and acrylic / Dimensions variable / © Vera Möller / Courtesy: The artist and Philip Bacon Gallery, Brisbane / Photograph: QAGOMA
Whilst inspired by the natural world, Möller describes this installation — vestibulia 2019 — as a kind of fiction, a composite of observed and invented parts. Like an underwater garden, the work evokes a coral reef complete with hard and soft corals, seaweed, nudibranchs and a wealth of other life. Each small sculpture stretches upwards, as if drawing sustenance from other life in the water whilst reaching towards the light. Together these ‘families’ of form offer a wonderful array of pattern and colour — a model of a diverse ecosystem or society. Möller leaves the white clay of many of the elegant sculptures unadorned, evoking the skeletal remains of coral and recent damage to the Great Barrier Reef. vestibulia celebrates the wonder of such sites but also reminds us of their vulnerability to rising water temperatures and ocean acidity.
Vera Möller / Germany/ Australia b.1955 / vestibulia 2019, installed for ‘Water’ at QAGOMA, 2019 / Modelling material and acrylic / Dimensions variable / © Vera Möller / Courtesy: The artist and Philip Bacon Gallery, Brisbane / Photograph: C Callistemon, QAGOMA
