Rick Tailby, Throw the Earth on the Barby (RECYCLED & RESCUED 2024)

Photos:

Rick Tailby

Country:

Australia

Everybody loves a great barbecue but not so much when our home, Earth is on the menu. Almost all my work begins with a remnant from the trees on Scotland Island NSW where I have lived for 20 plus years. It has inspired me to create thought provoking pieces that highlight the absurdity of destroying the place we rely on for our existence. The flame like structure is composed of a Spotted Gum bough that I found inside a termite ball that had fallen to the ground just behind my house. I bleached the outer surfaces and did a soap finish to retain their pale hue and as a contrast, French polished the interior surface to showcase the color and grain. The half copper float had spent 50 years in a dam at my brother’s property in Canoelands NSW and the natural patination suggested an Earthlike appearance. The legs are offcuts from the arms of a sofa we used to manufacture many years ago alluding to plumes of smoke once I joined them together.

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