William Eicholtz: TarraWarra Primavera

TarraWarra Primavera is a playful Antipodean retelling of Botticelli’s Three Graces from his Primavera painting in the Uffizi Gallery. Set among the minimal Etruscan colonnade of the courtyard of TarraWarra Museum of Art, these sculptures appear to dance through the space like Maenads or Minoan priestesses, once again referring to the ancient cultural lineage that so inspired Botticelli. These Three Graces, and the harvest they bear, are the inheritors of the legacy of the jumbuck in Australian art, from Tom Roberts’s traditional merinos to the gritty sheep of Les Kossatz. The jumbucks of TarraWarra Primavera make a new statement. Their wry smirks and manicured demeanours belie any notion of drought or hardship on the land and reflect on a privileged, civilized culture and the pastoral bounty of their station.