Stone forest

In the 1970s Ken Unsworth began to make small-scale objects and maquettes that were used to test ideas and materials for full-scale sculptures. A recent encounter with arte povera sculpture had prompted Unsworth to experiment with organic and found materials. Arte povera, meaning ‘poor art’, was a radical Italian movement whose artists used non-traditional materials to resist the expectations of a commercialised art world. His first works with river stones soon followed.

'Stone forest' 2000–08, a twiggy assemblage of stones on stilts, relates to the collection work 'Propped stone piece' 1976 and to the well-known installation 'Stones against the sky' 1998 in Sydney’s Kings Cross. Each work employs a thin, vertical structure to hoist stone-like objects against their gravitational pull. With its use of gumtree branches and collected river stones, 'Stone forest' is particular to its Australian context and suggests a strong connection to the natural world.