The Engineers Table

Stuart Elliott

Title: The Engineers Table

Artist/s: Stuart Elliott

Year: 1993

Category: Sculpture

Site: Warwick Station

Location Details: Warwick Station platform

Description:

Chairs and a low table offer a place to sit and wait for the train at platform level.

Artist/s Statement:

The concept was driven by my first-hand experience of Wanneroo Road and the Mitchell Freeway. When going to inspect the site, I used both access ways. The brief was to construct sculptural seating. I work a lot in installationtype format so it seemed a good chance to develop a piece beyond merely a simple object or decoration. Each time I visited the site the traffic was dense and unrelenting. On more than one occasion, the freeway was gridlocked, allowing me to ride my motorbike sensibly for kilometre after kilometre between lanes of stationary vehicles. I felt that if I lived in this area and was committed to commuting, I would make much use of that train and get lots of reading, writing or drawing done rather than sitting staring at tailgates, boots, bumpers and car doors I have always loved Art Deco, not just for the streamlined, Egyptian-inspired forms and its simplicity and dynamism, but also too for its idealism and optimism. So I used the form of a hybridised 30s American loco to embody this sense of futuristic endeavour. In its wake is a jumble of old-world cars, and the furniture around the flank of the loco is intended to have a sense of being swept up and visually fused. The table and chairs are made from steel for practicality. Bronze was used for the loco and cars for ease of translating the modelled into something semi precious and durable. The chairs were sliced and re-welded to a more interesting and conceptually relevant shape. For the vehicles, I hand-made wooden patterns and made plaster casts of the cars and a latex and plaster mother mould of the loco. From these I took waxes and had them cast in bronze which I then cleaned and fettled.