Who knows what’s happening at this very moment on the bottom of the Fragile Sea?
Louis skulks along the bottom looking for an easy meal, while just above, Ronaldo eyes Louis with similar intent. Clem pokes his horns in where they don’t belong — if he’s not careful, he’ll wind up bloated on the beach. Meanwhile, plucky little Whale Rider takes up a commanding position on top of her giant hungry friend, guiding him toward Lucinda, an unsuspecting cephalopod, basking on the glassy surface.
– Phillip Fickling, 2018
Phillip Fickling is a paper engineer with a significant background in handcrafted paper objects, books and sculptures including the celebrated pop-up book Swell: The Art of Judy Millar. In this exhibition Fickling presents a display of carefully sculpted paper creatures – part animal, part machine – of a fictional era inspired by industrial design. The still and stark white paper gives way to imagined colours, movements and interactions between the underwater beings swimming through the exhibition space.