Nonda Katsalidis

The large scale sculptural works included at Mount Monument are a collection Nonda completed during 2019-2022.

They begun as a series of reflections and models made from cork, card, timber, metal and wax, all evolving into Marquette’s of metal and timber of more detail. A period of time spent in the picturesque and tranquil Macedon Ranges, isolated like the rest of the world during the pandemic, Nonda used the time to explore architectural and sculptural ideas which his busy professional life did not allow.

Awarded a Queens Honours award in 2021 for his services to architectural and prefabricated building technology, many of the pieces explore connections, literally and metaphorically.

Spending time over the past 18 years watching the changes in seasons and weather at Mount Monument, exploring the bush, wetlands and the ancient volcanic outcrop, Nonda decided that the southern paddock, abandoned to self seed after cattle agistment was the perfect spot to place many of the works and connect them to the cellar door and restaurant.

Many of Nonda’s sculptures are a contrast of tectonics, repetitive components of either concrete, steel or timber that rest, interlock and explore connections to their broader context. Nonda often begins the design technique by beginning with a found object and responding to it intellectually or rationally, but it always an intuitive response that examines what feels right both materially, compositionally and proportionally.

The large concrete and steel piece, Threshold that aligns with the cellar door entrance, has a room in Klein blue that frames the sky, within the threshold, providing a moment of reflection before crossing into the paddock of sculpture by Nonda and sculptors he has invited to contribute to this new experience.

The sculpture sitting at the top of the hill, Celestial is a celebration of early industrial technologies and engineering feats of the 19th century. The hot rivet which is seen in this sculpture is the strongest type of rivet joint. As it cools it contracts and squeezes the joint tightly together. Nonda has lowered the beam to eye level, an appreciation of the common construction technique of the 19th century, including bridges, the Eiffel Tower and Levi jeans. The deep colour of the rust of the rivets and steel, creates a repetitive pattern and texture that is surprisingly ornamental, but seen from a distance, appears as an abstracted and strangely proportioned cross or a suspension bridge without it’s cables and connecting points.

The giant graphic red X, sited to the north of of the cross, is constructed from the same steel profile as a shipping container, rigid as a beam, it’s the tallest structure in the sculpture paddock reminiscent of OMA’S super graphics, and a hyper graphic seen through the trees as visitors drive past Mount Monument.

The works dotted around the terraced amphitheatre provide a layering of scale and context for a disused paddock including the two Stacks of Sticks and Nemesis.

What they all share is Nonda’s attraction to the rejected and redundant from the construction wasteland. Objects and pieces that have been recreated as industrial monuments, that take on temple-like, figurative or abstract qualities, they all re-imagine the inherent beauty and opportunity of waste. Once he no longer views them as junk, he sees them as shapes and forms to be rearranged. Whether the objects have been covered in pop rivets or rearranged in a different context to change their meaning like the giant Auger with its top attached, referencing the simple and direct technology of a hand drill or ‘brace and bit’, the viewer may see something else entirely. In this case, it appears as a giant wine bottle opener.

The piece placed next to the wetlands, Nothed is a balanced stacking of giant timber logs that have been scorched with fire in the factory to create a blackened surface. Its name refers to the V-shaped indentations that secures the sculpture together, a method of recording time or achievement. Re-imaging these objects as sculptures, they all naturally have the insight of his architectural and engineering sense of processes, but unlike his buildings, are simply reflections on tectonics and connections.

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