I wasn't as impressed with this year's Sculpture by the Sea as I have been in other years, it could be because the standard in other years was so high or I might be a bit jaded. A few of the offerings seemed thrown together and a lot of the iron works were, cut welded, and then left unfinished, or so I thought.

One piece that particulary impressed me was Tracing by Professor Shen Lieyi, made of granite and bronze with the intentention of “considering the source of flowing water”. I immediatly thought of Seahenge, in Norfolk, England, although I've never seen it. Created around 2049 BCE it has an outer ring of split oak trunks with an inverted oak stump in the centre. If time and weather permits I'd like to revist it again to see if I can better capture the ripples etched into the granite.

Another piece worth commenting on is The Spot by A.Cooke, A.Hankin, M.Aberline, the same team who put together The Frying Pan in 2014's exhibition, see my 2014 album. Both pieces were inspired by the need to draw attention to the high rates of melanoma in Australia and to encourage people to have regular skin checks. The piece “changes size, shape and colour, just like a dangerous melanoma”.

Sharnana by Drew MacDonald is a playful juxtoposition of a shark emerging from a giant yellow banana and KKB XXL (2019) by Denis Defranceso elicited a wry smile.