Blue Mountains artist Clara Hali has been selected to develop a new public artwork under Council’s Mount Victoria Village Recovery Package.
Artists went through a staged selection process with applicants asked to consider the aesthetic qualities of Mount Victoria Village, contextual responsiveness to Ngurra (Country), and collaboration with local community members in the creation of the work.
Clara’s sculpture, titled Pagoda Woman, will reference the 2019 bush fires and the subsequent exposed landscapes and rock formations within the Blue Mountains. Pagoda Woman aims to address and integrate the influence of the landscape through a bronze, abstracted figurative form.
Clara is a local sculptor, creating bold female figures in bronze, stone, ceramic and wood. Her interests lie with the duality of fragility and strength in humans, inspired by precarious landforms found in the Blue Mountains where she lives.
She is delighted that her site-specific sculpture has been selected for the Mount Victoria Memorial Park as a part of the recovery package upgrades.
Clara explains, “Since I was a child, I have found solace in nature and have a strong connection with the land, with the bush. My family had many holidays in Mount Victoria when I was a child. I am thrilled to be able to contribute something to this community so many years later.”
Clara has been a lecturer at the National Art School for thirty-five years and has exhibited widely since 1980 in both solo and group exhibitions. She is a regular exhibitor with Sculpture by the Sea in Bondi and Cottesloe and is represented in public and private collections, nationally and internationally.
Blue Mountains Mayor, Cr Mark Greenhill said, “I congratulate Clara on being selected to produce this artwork and, with the rest of the community, I look forward to seeing it installed within the park. The community of Mount Victoria has been through so much in recent years due to the impacts of bushfire but is now moving forward with a renewed positivity.”
Adding to the region’s growing collection of public art, the commissioned work will continue to celebrate the Blue Mountains as the inaugural ‘City of the Arts’.
The work is expected to be installed in early 2024, coinciding with the completion of the village upgrades funded under the Mount Victoria Village Recovery package.
The Mount Victoria Village Recovery Package is a series of village improvements and upgrades that will boost the social and economic recovery of Mount Victoria in the wake of the ongoing impacts of the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20. It received grant funding from the Australian Government through the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Grants program.
More information on the Mount Victoria Village Recovery Package is available at: yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/mt-vic-recovery-package
Photo provided by the artist: Clara Hali pouring bronze.
