Ephemeral Lake, Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne, Australia.

The work is the result of a collaboration of the artists Edwina Kearney and Mark Stoner. Installation was completed in 2004.

Ephemeral Lake introduces the narrative of water in this ancient, degraded, arid and flat continent. Water flows across the horizontal surface, spreading out in a dendritic pattern. A land of flood and drought, there are many ephemeral watercourses in Australia.

The work is predicated on the idea of the presence and absence of water and the horizontal nature of its dispersal across the arid zones of Australia. Viewed as a meandering rather than a direct flow pattern. This requires a certain way of movement, a linear sensibility. This allows a rhythm and tempo in the work, a quietness, a distillation of time and space.

The ceramic components may be seen either as positive or negative elements, indicating the presence and absence of water. They may indicate where the water is or was. Water exists in the lowest points of the landscape, the depressions or negative spaces.

The positives are referencing the negative.