Rachel Dallas

Wooden wedges used on ships to help secure cargo are often washed up on the beach, and invite various possibilities of construction, like children's wooden play blocks. The Nautilus shell - Argonauta Nodosa - arrives as flotsam on the beaches of Flinders Island and is something of an icon. Both the wedges and the shells journey on the tide. The spiral form is one often found in nature, and copied in man-made structures, such as the spiral staircases of most lighthouses.

Clumps of seagrass, flat green leaves on tough wiry stalks, attached to matted rafts of roots, come to rest on the water's edge, stems swirling in the wash of the waves, casting shadows on the damp sand.

Plastic squid-fishing lures wash up in numbers on the beach. The lures used in this sculpture retain their luminescence and add another dimension to this piece when viewed in the dark.

Beachcombing on Flinders Island provides the inspiration and materials for the sculptures and assemblages created by Rachel Dallas. Working with found objects - natural and man-made - her constructions allow the materials she chooses to speak fro themselves. With a minimum of artifice, her works represent elements of the natural world or highlight how the most ordinary objects are transformed by time and the elements.
Rachel also makes baskets and sculptural pieces using locally sourced materials and has recently been experimenting with digital photography. She completed a BA at Victoria College in 1989 majoring in Writing and continues to explore the craft.
Her works has been shown in group exhibitions on Flinders Island, including Wind Festival 2000,and more recently at Strait Art Works Galley in 2006.