Sculpture winner: doorway to Albion's past to stay in Forbes

Combining elements of the history of the hotel, Alice in Wonderland, memory, and the idea of being transported to another world, Ingrid Morley’s Shadows on the Landing is a well deserving winner of the annual competition according to this year’s guest judge, Alison Clarke, who is the coordinator of arts and culture for North Sydney Council and has judged numerous art and sculpture prizes.

“Shadows on the Landing is an elegant and evocative response to the site which was home to the Albion Hotel, destroyed by fire,” Ms Clarke said in her judges comments.  

“The artist has skilfully combined fragments and relics constructed from steel and found objects to create a contemporary monument which pays homage to the history of the old pub and all those who passed through its doors.”

Ms Clarke said she responded to Ms Morley’s work because of the great consideration to the site and its history.

“She created a contemporary piece that is a sculpture but is also a monument paying homage to the old pub,” Ms Clarke said.

“I love the idea of the door being a portal to another world…a portal into somewhere else.

“It’s a beautiful work and hopefully the locals will identify with it.”

Ingrid Morley was thrilled to have won the $20,000 acquisition prize in the second annual sculpture competition.

“It’s fantastic, I’m very happy – I can’t believe it,” she said.

“It’s wonderful, I feel very honoured.”

Ms Morley has been sculpting for 18 years and lives just outside of Oberon.

When she heard about the competition she came to Forbes to visit the Albion Park site and immediately felt a connection with it.

“I responded to the site when I first saw it…there’s something quite mysterious about it,” she said.

“The Albion met an end that felt unjust, as much folklore goes…having such a fantastic story associated with that site is just magic for an artist.

“When I listened to the story told by a lady at the visitor’s centre, I was totally taken…I went back to the site and stood there and could see the uneven ground, where it was sucked away in places from where the tunnels were and I thought what a brilliant thing to do to make a sculpture to represent that.”

Ms Morley said the history of the Albion and the tunnels are like an opening to another world, which is what her sculpture, Shadows on the Landing, is all about.

“That’s what my sculpture is referring to – opening the door to another world, in part, and opening the door to the stairway to the past,” she said.

“It’s a remnant of the past that existed there…but always only part, you never get the whole picture.”

Alice in Wonderland also inspired the piece, with the door and especially the lock on the stairs suggestive of entering another world as Alice did.

 “Alice slipped down a tunnel and that could represent the Albion tunnels, without being too literal…it’s all suggested,” she said.

The sculpture was made from the combination of found objects and steel.

The base plate weighs over half a tonne and is an old debarker from the timber industry, the door handle was a really old tap head for industrial equipment and the post is an old railway sleeper pin, which reminded Ms Morley of Victorian-style architecture. 

“So that’s a reference to the hotel, which was built in the Victorian era in 1861,” she said.

“It was a suggestion of an era without saying too much.

“All of these things combine to suggest something…the power of suggestion is something that I love to use.”

Ms Morley wants to acknowledge Brian Sinclair from OEL Contractors and Earthmoving, Oberon Engineering and Brian Masters for their help on the sculpture.

Shadows on the Landing will now be the first sculpture in the Somewhere Down the Lachlan Sculpture Trail, and Ms Morley is pleased that Forbes gets to keep it. 

“I’m thrilled because it’s nice to know you got it right,” she said.