Story of the Piece: The Root

Water has always found me.

Before FNQ, there was Mt Tamborine - Cedar Creek Falls tumbling over ancient stone, cold and clear and indifferent to everything but gravity. I used to stand at the edge of that water and feel something loosen in my chest. I didn't have a name for it then. I just knew that wherever water moved, I needed to be near it.

FNQ gave me Stony Creek. It gave me the rivers and the rainforest runoff and the particular way still water holds a sky. And it gave me roots - the kind that have spent years in water, smoothed and darkened, shaped by something patient and relentless.

This root was found here. It sat at the bottom of a local waterway until it was ready to become something else. I set it across a small pond of blue resin — koi circling beneath it, lily pads drifting, sand and gravel settled on the bed like they've always been there. Because in a way, they have.

The koi don't know they're miniature. They just keep moving. That's the thing about water - everything in it just keeps moving.

Materials: Resin, found driftwood root, miniature koi fish, local pebbles, aquatic plant accents

Dimensions: 16cm x 16cm x 4cm

Price: $350