Outside | Donna Marcus

Trellis

(2026)

Location: 210 Brunswick Street, Queensland

Material: aluminium, LED lighting

Fabricator – Urban Art Projects

Trellis comprises two impressive soffit-mounted components, each with integrated lighting, adding further depth and dynamic visual interest to the space. The first component comprises a single-layer made from 228 meticulously arranged aluminium die-cast steamers, forming a captivating hexagonal form that weighs 136kg. The second component while even more visually streamlined, presents a more complex construction of five layers incorporating a total of 270 steamers and weighing 102kg. The careful integration of lighting not only highlights the vibrant shapes and shadows of the pieces but also enhances their structural elegance.’

82aa0b_dbf171179d1f4b64901f584d5c731f22~mv2

82aa0b_e1f4420fcf724e49995ba84df38e3265~mv2

Bloom

(2024)

Location: Croydon Train Station, Victoria

Material: cast bronze

Fabricator – Stainless Aesthetics

Stride

(2023)

Location: Kambala, Sydney

Material: aluminium, LED lighting

Size: 1.5 + 1.1 metre diameter

Fabricator – Stainless Aesthetics

Nook

(2023)

Location: Great Victorian Rail Trail, Tallarook, Victoria

Material: steel, vitreous enamel

Fabricator – Stainless Aesthetics

‘Things is crook in Tallarook’, an Australian colloquilism, speaks to a time when ‘making-do’ with great ingenuity and resourcefulness was a necessity. Nook takes as its starting point the ubiquitous blue and white bowls and mugs, used by itinerant workers and swaggies who built the railway, or wandered along its thoroughfare.

Inspired by the making of cotton-reel bush furniture, fabricated ‘bowls’ are joined to shape the sentinel forms. In material, form and pattern, Nook recalls the domestic and the industrial, the railway signage and the metal kitchenware both finished in vitreous enamel by the same Victorian company that has operated continuously since the 1890s. Nook marks a new beginning, the start of the trail and a restful corner to contemplate earlier paths.

Gathering

(2023)

Location: OpenField Arts Festival, Berry, New South Wales

Material: aluminium, steel, adhesive

This work was developed for the inaugural OpenField Arts Festival which was held over four days in Berry on the South Coast of New South Wales. Photos: Jared Underwood

Pivot

(2022)

Location: Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney

Material: anodised aluminium, concrete, steel

Documentation of Artwork installed at Kangaroo Bay, Rosny. Tasmania

Mooring

(2022)

Location: Kangaroo Bay, Bellerive, Tasmania

Material: bronze

Fabricator – Perides Art Foundry

The everyday is memorialised in the bronze forms of Mooring which are cast quite literally from the types of post-war aluminium objects that might have been found in the sunrooms and patios of Hobart’s Eastern suburbs houses, including planters, soda siphons, beakers and other household objects.

Plant

(2018)

Location: Gasworks, Brisbane

Material: steel, vitreous enamel , aluminium frame, LED floodlights.

Size: 2 components 1800 mm diameter

Consultants: Tom Dooley Developments in association with Plazibat Architects and Armitstead ART Consulting (curator Jacqueline Armitstead)

Fabricator – Stainless Aesthetics, Brisbane

Plant was commissioned in accordance with the Brisbane City Council’s Art in Public Places policy.

Plant incorporates apertures inspired by the trivets of gas stoves tops emitting strong blue light and its construction recalls the modern vision of the bolted and fabricated components of the Victorian era Gasometer structure itself. The artist worked directly with Glass Metal Industries, Geelong who have been producing vitreous enamel products since 1890) to handcraft surfaces using this traditional process.

Sponge

(2016)

Location: Station Square, Joondalup, Western Australia
Material: Aluminium, steel, water mist unit, LED lights
Size: 3m diameter

Consultants: Lend Lease, Fred Cehak (Project Manager for Griffith University)

Fabrication: Stainless Aesthetics

Vapour

(2016)

Location: Zhengzhou, China
Material: Aluminium
Size: variable

Consultants: UAP

Propel

(2015)

Location: Gladstone, Queensland, Australia
Material: Aluminium, steel, led lights
Size: 3.2m diameter

Consultants: Gladstone Regional Council, Arts Queensland, Stainless Aesthetics (fabricator), Damian O’Mara (engineer), Fred Cehak (Project Manager for Griffith University)

Sift

(2015)

Location: Tianfu Sales Centre, Chengdu Heneng
Material: Aluminium
Size: elements 1.2m diameter

Consultants: UAP

True North

(2012)

Location: Mackay, Queensland
Material: polyethylene
Size: variable

Consultants: Lend Lease, Mackay Regional Gallery, Mackay Regional Council, Fred Cehak (Project Manger for Griffith University).

Re-Entry

(2010)

Location: The Atrium, Federation Square Melbourne
Material: Re-used aluminium kitchenware
Size: variable

Consultants: Federation Square, Ray Purkis, Fred Cehak

Delphinus

(2009)

Location: KAUST, Saudi Arabia
Material: White bronze
Size: elements 1m diameter to 2.4m diameter

Consultants: Urban Art Projects (UAP)

Trickle

(2009)

Location: George St, Brisbane, Australia
Material: Aluminium kitchenware
Size: variable

Consultants: Cox Rayner, Jacqueline Amitstead, Antill Constructions (Simon Laws), Fred Cehak, Grosvernor

I Saw an Angel in the Marble and Carved to Set Him Free

(in collaboration with Simon Laws, 2009)

Location: Musgrave Park, Labrador, Queensland, Australia
Material: Rubber, steel
Size: variable

Consultants: Simon Laws, collection of the City of the Gold Coast

Steam

(2006)

Location: Brisbane Square, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Material: Aluminium
Size: variable

Consultants: DCM Architects, ABN Amro, Brisbane City Council and Fred Cehak (Project Manager)

Oscilloscope (Trace)

(2006)

Location: The Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award, Werribee Park, Victoria
Material: Aluminium, size variable

Oscilloscope (Trace) references the electrocardiogram or ECG, a device that measures the electrical activity of the human heart. This activity is displayed on the screen of the oscilloscope and mapped in detail by a line known as the “The Trace”. The Trace moves and fades across the screen as it tracks the changing rhythm of life. A tonne of saucepan lids, pudding bowls and other redundant objects reordered as an oscilloscope becomes a symbol of the changing movement of people and things– the objects or ‘heartbeat’ of everyday life – recording life and waste as they are constructed and constrained by each other.