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Ripples and Droplets – 116 Bathurst Street

Location: 116 Bathurst Street, Sydney
Commissioner: United Development Sydney / Hutchinson Builders
Architects: Candalepas Associates, Angelo Candalepas
Public Art Curator: Amanda Sharrad
Senior Industrial Designer: Mitchel Brown Vert Design
Photo Credits: Brett Boardman and Jillian Nalty

Ripples and Droplets, a mural by Maria Fernanda Cardoso, spans the length of one wall of a 36-storey residential tower in the centre of Sydney. Standing 11 storeys high and covering 335 square metres, the mural is believed to be the largest public artwork by an Australian artist in the Sydney CBD.

The artist was commissioned by United Development Sydney for the newly completed Castle Residences
mixed development at 116 Bathurst Street. The project was designed by Candalepas Associates and
realised by Hutchinson Builders. Maria Fernanda Cardoso worked closely with the architect, Angelo Candalepas, since the inception of the project in 2014, and developed the work with public art curator
Amanda Sharrad. While the brief has evolved over time, the result is consistent with many of the themes that have guided her practice for decades. A design by the team led by Angelo Candalepas and Associates was last week revealed as the winning design for NGV Contemporary, the new contemporary art and design gallery in Melbourne.

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“When I started to make public art, I just felt at such ease. I had prepared all my life for it. In a public space, scale is very important, because most things go unperceived. The scale makes them visible. The patterns are like ripples in water, and if you look closer, there are droplets. My concept from the beginning was about painting as a fluid. That is why it has ended up being ripples and droplets.” - Maria Fernanda Cardoso

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“This artwork is a distinctive and exceptional landmark and Maria Fernanda Cardoso’s most ambitiously scaled work to date. Cardoso delights in finding, revealing and celebrating beauty and magnificence in small and seemingly insignificant forms and forces of nature.
The biophilic design of this work calls to mind natural phenomena such as rain on a web, ripples on water,
growth rings of a tree—meticulously enlarged to the scale of the built environment. Changing fluidly
according to one’s vantage point, drawing the eye in from the street and upwards from below, the fine
organic lines of white mineral paint contrast beautifully with the surrounding architectural order and urban colour, giving the artwork a quietly powerful presence.” - Amanda Sharrad, public art curator

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“There is a need for artworks on buildings to reflect the intentions of the architectural work, which is also art. We had wanted to add to the city something as strong as the Josef Albers sculpture in Martin Place or Alexander Calder’s in Australia Square—but with an Australian artist. Maria Fernanda Cardoso listened to the building’s needs and understood that the work deferred to the ancient idea of a circle in geometry, the sphere and the imperfection of pendulums in making these shapes. Her work reflects the tenuous nature of circles rather than their certainty, and in so doing it defers to nature. It has been completed through contemporary technology to appear both uncertain and permanent, at once of this time and absent of a time. It sits uneasily on microns off a concrete wall like the constellation of a thousand spiders. She leaves behind a great message about optimism in geometry, about the human ability to offer something joyous, with the arches of Castlereagh Street finding their source in this mirroring of nature.” - Angelo Candalepas, architect

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“Hutchinson has worked closely with
Maria-Fernanda Cardoso and Amanda Sharrad to bring to life the artist’s vision, which is nestled off the side face of the 11-storey hotel facade under the main building’s cantilever. It has been challenging and rewarding to create and project this piece of art on such a large scale and to a detail that mimics the
artist’s original concepts.” - Timothy Ferguson,
Hutchinson Project Manager

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