THE Love Flower sculpture is set to move from its Peninsula Link home by the end of the year.
Love Flower, by John Meade, has been at the Cranbourne Road overpass of Peninsula Link since 2019. It replaced Reflective Lullaby, the infamous chrome gnome.
The Peninsula Link overpass sculpture is replaced every four years as part of a partnership between McClelland Gallery and Southern Way. Last year artist Natasha Johns-Messenger was handed a $300,000 commission to complete a sculpture titled Compass 23, which will be installed at the site. The new artwork is expected to feature 12-metre high powder coated and stainless steel geometric structures.
Love Flower will move to the McClelland Gallery. To coincide with the move, an exhibition of Meade’s work will open at the gallery in December.
John Meade: It’s Personal! will run from 4 December to 25 March at the McClelland Gallery in Langwarrin. Gallery curator Suzette Wearne says the exhibition will reflect queer culture, politics, and artistic experimentation.
“Through sculpture, video, and installation, John Meade draws relations between the metaphysical and surreal in the experience of contemporary life and culture. A refined and adventurous materiality defines his work, through sensuous forms and unexpected juxtapositions inflected by the erotic and uncanny,” Wearne said. “McClelland is an entirely relevant site for the survey exhibition given Meade’s respected standing within Australian sculpture, and his long history with the area and the institution. Meade’s family live in the area, and a video work to be included in the show was shot on the freeway near the gallery and sculpture park.”
Johns-Messenger’s Peninsula Link artwork was the seventh work commissioned through the Southern Way and McClelland Gallery partnership. Southern Way donates funds for the sculptures, which alternate sites on Peninsula Link every two years. There will be 14 commissions up to 2037.
