Signage and display textiles business Ricky Richards has teamed up with Goldberg Aberline Studios to help create an inflatable coral reef installation for this year’s popular Sculpture by the Sea event in Sydney.
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| Microcosm at Sculpture by the Sea, Tamarama. |
Artists Maurice Goldberg and Matthew Aberline turned to Homebush-based Ricky Richards for advice on the best materials to use to create their gigantic sculpture titled Microcosm, before deciding on the printable backlit textile Samba and Nylon 420 fabric.
Microcosm, installed in a prominent spot above Tamarama Beach, was one of 107 sculptures designed by artists from 21 countries displayed at the 22nd annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition on the coastal walk between Bondi Beach and Tamarama. The event is the world’s largest free public sculpture event and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
“It never ceases to amaze us what our clever customers can do with Ricky products,” says Kathryn Polgar, general manager Ricky Richards. “This sculpture is truly amazing, and we are proud to have our fabrics on show in such a beautiful piece of art.“
Microcosm is Latin for little world. Taking a small piece of coral reef and exploding its scale to giant proportions, the work is a playful take on positive environmental change, according to the artists: “The work explores the building blocks of the universe, seemingly at first a coral reef - then a community, an ecosystem, a small universe all working together.”
Established in 1983 by brothers Ron and Norman Gottlieb and their father, Eric Gottlieb, family-owned Ricky Richards has built a comprehensive database of information about which fabrics work best for any given application.
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| Microcosm, featuring the printable backlit textile Samba, after dark. |
