We Reap What You Sow
Audio description
Text description
- Title: We Reap What You Sow
- Artist: Madwings
- Wall size: Various heights from 2.1 to 8 metres, and approximately 25.4 metres long
- Location: 26 Liberty Street, Enmore
We Reap What You Sow is a vibrant street artwork of black, organic beings, referred to by the artists as Shadow-Whisperers, in a twining visual poem of spindly forms and breath-like emissions. It is spread across the side of a two-story terrace house on a corner block.
A curb gives way to a sealed road directly in front of the work. A green hedge and "give way" sign are on the right of the building.
The building's six small windows are incorporated into the work. There are three at ground level and three more, white-framed and landscape oriented, set widely apart in the second story. The figures of the Shadow Whisperers weave and cascade around them.
A lower wall extends to the left at the rear of the property and beside it, is a set of two corrugated garage doors. The first garage and the wall are orange, linking them to the work.
The artworks background is graded colour. The lower half is predominantly brightest, fiery orange, fading up to yellow at window-height, before taking on a light- green hue. The top story is bright, royal blue. At the top of the wall, over the blue, are speckles of pink, calling to mind a galaxy of stars.
Colour has been applied in speckled layers. As an example, at person-height and below, vibrant tones of mottled umber and orange are at their brightest, and Madwings' artists have textured the concrete surface over the top of the base colours with a multitude of tiny flecks of royal blue, peach, black, lime and forest green, adding depth and complexity to brightness.
All across the coloured background, are gnarled and bough-like Shadow Whisperers, organically rendered in thick, uneven, black lines. At right, a medium-sized, Shadow Whisperer One stands facing the rest of the artwork. Next to it, Shadow-Whisperer two, emanating shrub-like and closer to the earth. It stretches up its tendril-like head to meet the medium sized Whisperer.
On our left is a, gnarlier and more prominent Shadow Whisperer Three The Whisperer's lower half is made from a collection of tendrils rising to join one another, becoming and bearing its own, branch-like shoots as it curls, arching it's back to form a C-shape filling the bright, royal blue across the top of the work.
Like willowy tree roots, the smaller two Whisperers ascend through the artwork's orange, yellow and green background. All three Whisperer's heads share space in the middle of the work, at right.
Their heads are largely featureless. Two hollow eyes above a wide, lower jaw. The blue-ish green background fills their oval sockets.
Whisperer One stands, much like a human, with knobbled black legs set apart and five thick toes on each foot. Whisperer One faces into the work. The Whisperer's toes form a semi-circular arch from its leg to the ground, one atop the other on each foot. The foot on our right is smaller than the foot on our left. At the forked apex of Whisperer One's hips, thin, vine-like tendrils droop down.
From Whisperer One's back, two tendrils drop down to the right. On its front, short, extended arms and frond-like hands curl in towards its body. The Whisperer's long neck is bent with gnarled and curly root-like tendrils protruding from it.
From Whisperer One's jaw, small droplets travel forward and out, as though the Whisperer is exhaling many tiny petals in a narrow gust. They swirl and collect into a wide, round shape, continuing to travel down in a long, steady stream.
Shadow Whisperer One faces a long narrow window Whisperer Two's head extends on a wavy tendril just above the window and droplets travel down in a gust, reappearing below the window in a narrow stream, swirling around and eventually rising to meet up with droplets from Whisperer Three.
Shadow Whisperer Two's lanky form is distinctly more shrub-like. A cluster of seven knobbly, offshoots rise from a curb-height, cluster of roots. Towards Whisperer One five twisting shoots grow out, one bearing Whisperer Two's head and, three merging with Whisperer One at knee-height.
Two more knobbly shoots curve up and around to our left joining Shadow Whisperer Three's, loose and rambling circular form. Beside Whisperer Two, another three stand-alone shoots extend up from curb-height, five-fingered roots, collected by Whisperer Three.
On our far left, on a background of green, and halfway up the wall, on the end of a tendril, a smaller, empty-eyed black head spews a rounded collection of droplets downwards.
Another budding head further up emits a fine spray of droplets in a narrow ascending path, the droplets pools in a balloon-like shape at the very top, cut off by the top edge of the wall.
Shadow Whisperer Three has many branch-like extremities emanating from its arching form. Two thick, gnarled tendrils protrude from behind its head, their starting point obscured by a white-framed, second-story window. They extend out beyond Whisperer Three's head, as though reaching to claw at the night.
Whisperer Three's narrow chin expels petal-droplets, forming two streams, spills down and around the head of Whisperer Two, one stream balloons out, leaking from the bottom, bypassing Whisperer Two's head to mingle amongst root-like shoots and curling fronds, the other stream floats to the right, joining with droplets from Whisperer One.
The colourful, cyclical work carries a tension. The Shadow Whisperers are simultaneously old and new, as wizened, twisted forms bear clusters of branches, frond-like shoots and breath-like whispers.
Beside the large artwork, at the back of the property Always Was Always Will Be is written in spidery capitals, accompanied by a windswept rolly polly. Its spindly, black tendrils wind through the word Always. Above the statement is a black fence and through its evenly spaced struts is a private backyard.
Further to our left, on concrete above a corrugated roller door are the words By Madwings, black text on a mottled orange background. In parentheses below, it reads Maddison dot Gibbs commar, Jason dot Wing.
The roller door is spattered with accents of black. On the inside pillar of the garage's concrete frame are the words Spirits 2023 assisted by Cameron Harris and Paddy Byrne.
This is the end of the audio description.