Carla Gottgens is a multi disciplinary artist who produces both sculptural and two dimensional artworks. Her site specific work is created through extensive research into a location, its history, the people who live, work and play in the area and the flora and fauna that exists or once thrived there.

“Wet land Dry land” is a collection of individual designs focussing on the bird life and habitat of Canada Bay. The importance of the mangroves that provide the lung system of the river area and the transition from the water rich areas of the harbour to the grass and wood land environment on shore.

Wet land Dry land provides two views of flora, one is taken from above looking down from a bird’s eye view, the other is from a standing position looking up. This latter view is shown in the shade cloth design where the viewer looks up through mangrove leaves to bird species flying overhead. These include the white faced heron, masked lapwing, black winged stilt and black fronted dotterel. The Popp Table features a great white crane, dusky flathead and mudcrab in a look down view where the reflection of mangroves creates a mirror image on the water surface.

A double barred finch and superb fairy wren hover in the kangaroo grass on the water bubbler, where the subtle but varied shades of the native grasses play out as they do throughout the seasons.

The concept for this artwork is a celebration of the fleeting and small things we often miss in a large city. Native birds fly past overhead that many city dwellers would not be aware of while the smaller bird species that prefer to remain unseen hunt and hide in parklands and reserves. Canada Bay has a rich and varied bird life population that can often be forgotten or thought to not exist within the mayhem of city life.

About the artist: www.cgphotography.com.au