Tamarama Beach or as local Sydneysiders call it 'Glamarama Beach', is well known as the place for beautiful people to be seen and for the rest of us to dream.
Artist, Graham Chalcroft set out to distort self-image in the name of fun by capitalising on the beach's former fairground history to design and fabricate a sculpture - 'Bathing Box: the impossible change room of shattered dreams'.
The stainless steel sculpture was a crowd favourite at the 'Sculpture by the Sea' exhibition held in November 2003 from Bondi Beach to Tamarama Beach in Sydney NSW.
The sculpture's design aesthetic was inspired by archival images of traditional late 19th century bathing boxes and how they have evolved.
Each sculpture profile is based on the curves of the human form - one male and one female. On approaching the convex/concave doors, the mirror distorts the body with startling effects.
ASSDA member, Stainless Sections, kindly donated six sheets of 304 with a No. 8 mirror finish for profiles fitted inside the doorframes.
For accuracy and efficiency, Chalcroft use T & M Engineering Group in Smithfield to computer design and laser cut the sheets to be clamped on the structural wood faces and strips.
"The stainless steel performed extremely well. It handled well in fabrication and the thick protective coating saved the steel from potential scratching," said Graham Chalcroft.
"The mirrored steel coped with the heat, wind, salt spray and suffered no scratching from the many thousands of hands touching the artwork," he said.
'Sculpture by the Sea' is in its seventh year and is the largest free outdoors sculpture exhibition in the worlds with over 200,000 visitors.
Photos by Graham Chalcroft.
This article featured in Australian Stainless magazine - Issue 27, February 2004.
