Norma Redpath
Desert arch
1964
Cast in the bronze foundries of Italy, Desert arch was first shown at Gallery A in Melbourne in 1964 before being exhibited in the central courtyard of the NGV for a period in the late 1960s. The work references the landscape of the Australian desert, the bronze horizontal slabs emerging from a central core symbolise stretches of arid country.
The viewing slot and narrow chink demonstrate Redpath’s enduring concern that sculpture should relate to the human scale, in the hope to prompt emotional and physical engagement and interaction between sculpture and viewer. The fragmentation of the arch, as well as the hinderance on suggested physical engagement with the work – the chink and viewing slot being too narrow to move or see widely through – evokes threatening feelings of constraint and restriction.