Benchmark

Artist: Susie Kumar & Naomi Kumar 
Year: 1998 
Location: Coventry Oval, Elizabeth Street, Diamond Creek

Stainless steel, timber (Victorian Ash) and red enamel paint. Sixty-metre-long red bench that gently curves in response to Coventry Oval. Bolted on top of evenly spaced stainless steel hurdles, four rows of timber runners are joined to provide unbroken continuous lengths. The bench stands on a framed bed of crushed rock (Lilydale topping).

Historical information

1996 Nillumbik Art in Public Places Award (installed late 1997) - a biennial program that ceased in 2007. The program commissioned artists to make and install public art in various sites around the Shire. Award judges that year were Tony Trembath and artist Peter D. Cole.

Susie Kumar has a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree from RMIT and Naomi Kumar has a Bachelor of Fine Art in photography degree from VCA.

Significance

The Kumar sisters designed the sixty metre gently curving bench in response to the topography of the site, Coventry Oval.

The sculpture is designed to describe the boundary between the formal oval and the natural creek bank and a considered relationship to the bike track and the river. It forms a link between the activities and aesthetics of its environment.

The work is a comical interpretation of the utilitarian public bench. From a distance the bright red runners (the colour of the local football team's stripe) appear to float about the surrounding green.

One end of the work is straight and finished. The other remains 'unfinished' hence allowing for the concept of unlimited extension.

The 'legs' (steel hurdles) are arranged with a sense of movement and rhythm in sympathy with the activities happening around the work and with the stands of trees in the background.

'Benchmark' also serves as a functional purpose; providing a choice of places to sit to watch action on the oval.

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