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32. Taryn Raffan

Markers, 2023

up-cycled wire and textiles 

 

 

Markers explores my ancestral connections to ideologies surrounding family, freemasonry, navigation, grief and the afterlife. These sculptures directly reference sandstones shards they transport me to a time when I was a child and my father worked in a sandstone quarry north of Sydney. My father would often bring home scrap sandstone and I would help move the pieces around the family yard whilst he worked on a landscaping project. By binding invisible lines to these ideas and memories my sculptures honour my instinctual connection to rock as a marker.

About the Artist

 

Taryn Raffan has Irish and Scottish ancestry, and currently lives on Yuggera Land in Brisbane, QLD.

@taryn.raffan

www.tarynraffan.com

 

 

Transcription

My name is Taryn and the work I am exhibiting in HIDDEN, 2023 is called ‘Markers’.

Markers is a suspended installation comprising of three textile rock-like forms. These forms are representative of shards of sandstone directly influenced by the sedimentary rock found in the eastern part of the Sydney Basin bioregion. Largely made from up-cycled textile materials these shards embody a softness which also conflicts with its representative form. Initially made by creating a wire framework these forms are developed through a process of binding, wrapping, weaving, shaping, and eventual embroidery.

The sandstone I have referenced is historically known as Yellowblock, especially to masons and quarry workers. This stone has also held quite some significance within my family and childhood memories. As a sandstone quarry worker for many years, my dad used to occasionally bring home up-cycled off cuts of this stone. It was used for a variety of purposes at home, anywhere from adventurous school projects to carvings and landscaping.

I have clear visions of these stones and the variety of colour streaks they can have, memories of hearing it being chiselled into sculptures and pavers for the backyard, and the tactility of the rough and smooth surfaces the various stones would unveil as I occasionally helped dad move pieces around the yard. Dad would quite often talk to me about how it was cut, used in the city to continue heritage maintenance, whereabouts the different types of rock were gathered from and tales about the expansive projects taking place and who sought after this valuable natural material.

My dad’s family history, having originated from Ireland, Scotland and Norway, has also influenced my interest in sandstone, rock and traditional stone markers. Having returned to Scotland on several occasions I have been greatly impacted by the stone circles, burial mounds, cairns and markers which are a significant part of this history. Whilst connecting to these histories my interest in way finding has increased, specifically my interest in traversing through notions of life and the afterlife.

By developing this new work specifically for HIDDEN I have been able to further understand deeper connections to my family origins and build upon visual languages representative of notions of realignment and uncertainty. Markers is a visual offering, not only for me but for others, to be able to sit, contemplate and imagine in times of great perplexity. These three rocks are suspended in time awaiting placement, an alignment of sorts. Ready to make one's own portal, stone circle or steppingstones through, and into the next phase of life.