The main wall of the foyer and atrium area in The Kinghorn Cancer Centre features a permanent installation artwork, White Water Falls (2012), by the British land artist Richard Long that spans eight floors.

The Artist

“My earliest memory of materials is of making mud pies as a small boy on our front path, slowly adding and mixing water to small cones of dry earth.

“I grew up near an estuary with the second highest tides in the world. Water has been one of the most important themes in my art life.

“Some examples: in 1967 I made a ‘waterline’, a straight ‘V’ of turf temporarily cut out of a lawn and filled with water. On Dartmoor in England, using waders, I used the riverbeds of streams as footpaths.

“I have made Water Walk, a walk across England carrying water from one river and pouring it into the next river crossed along the way, and so on, from river to river. I have made a canoe journey down the River Severn of the same length as the River Avon. Dry Walk – 113 walking miles between one shower and the next. In China: A Thousand Stones Thrown Into The River Yangtze. I have made walks measured by the tides: lunar time.

“I have only made walks where I can find water along the way. The life-giving rain of our planet.”

Richard Long
Sydney and Bristol 2012

 

The Wall

“I made this work by mixing a relatively small proportion of powdered china clay with a much larger proportion of water. Over the years I’ve learned to harness and control the liquidity of this clay mix. I worked fast, using my right hand, while holding the bucket with my left. The speed and energy of my hand helped make the splashes.

“I made each level in the ‘same’ way, although each level is unique. I make part of the work and the forces of nature – gravity and chance – make the rest. I want to use and show the cosmic variety of the micro-detail, and the beauty of chance.

“Some years ago I realised the splashes and run-downs, the ‘out-takes’, were as interesting as my hand marks. In this work I’m happy for this part of the work to play the leading role. I worked from the bottom to the top of the wall, always working on a clean surface, rising as the water fell, the momentary present overlapping the recent past.”

Richard Long
Sydney and Bristol 2012