Molly Morpeth Finalists 2023

Cathy Carter
The Habitable Zone
Brushed Aluminium, LED lights
2000 x 425 x 500 mm

The Habitable Zone speaks to Earth’s position in the ‘Goldilocks zone’- an area of space where water can exist in a liquid state. Light draws triangular geometric shapes across the wall emanating from rectangular lines drawn in aluminium. An impersonal factory aesthetic associated with the minimalist Bauhaus School, these hard lines represent Capitalism’s narrow perspective of water as resource. In contrast, the colour of the triangles changing through the spectrum reflects a ‘state of flow’, water’s true nature as ‘Source’. This juxtaposition poses questions and possibilities to address issues concerning water as we enter the Anthropocene.

Chauncey Flay
One Million Marks
stone, pigment & book

One million Marks is a large-scale, process based, conceptual project using stone, stone paper and stone slurry as a paint pigment and sculptural material.  Chauncey has committed to manually making one million marks onto stone over the course of one year, to produce a new series of sculptural objects which investigate ideas around the finite and the limitations of the body's physicality in relation to time and matter.

The body of work includes one hundred small scale faceted geometric stone sculptures, each referencing forms found in either natural geological formations, fragments from earthquake destroyed built environments, or traditional Māori tools such as toki and whao in the case where harder stone such as argillite and greywacke is used. Viewers are encouraged to handle the works, inviting them to consider how objects elevated in status as sculptures, can be signifiers of place, a part of their own narrative and relationship to the Te Waipounamu / South Island

In addition, one hundred hard cover books, each made using pigment derived from a corresponding stone sculpture, are presented collectively as a four-meter-high spiral stack work housed within a steel frame representing infinity and referencing forms such as the Tower of Babel, Brancusi's Endless Column or Alicja Kwade's double helix Principium motifs, as well as an acknowledgement of the use of books in the gallery space itself, which was originally the University of Canterbury library.