Falling in Slow Motion by Bridget Whitehead
Bridget Whitehead’s Falling in Slow Motion (2025) is made from simple kraft paper, folded along repeated curves into keeled bicurved shapes. They are suspended to allow gentle rotation with air movement. The work looks outward to the natural world and inward to our own experience. It calls to mind the fall of autumn leaves and the spiralling descent of winged seeds. It also evokes the elastic sense of time we can encounter during intense events.
Falling in Slow Motion will be on display until 12 April 2026.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Artist Bridget Whitehead uses sculpture as a way to explore her relationship with the world. Stone is her primary medium; she also works in concrete, paper, and plastics, using concrete as a way to recycle chippings from her stonework.
A first career as a geologist introduced Bridget to three-dimensional thinking as she learned to visualize under the surface of the earth. Now her knowledge of stone and landscape informs her art practice.
The mass of stone appeals to Bridget, the cool surfaces, the rough and the smooth. She appreciates the slow nature of carving with traditional tools of hammer, chisel and rasp, enjoying the tactile nature of the work. She is fascinated by the behaviour of paper when it is folded, especially along a curve. Her work, whether paper or stone, often features smooth planes and curving sinuous edges.
Bridget exhibits regularly at sculpture exhibitions in northern NSW, and this year participated in the Sculptors Victoria exhibition at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. She was awarded the 2025 Sculpture on the Farm prize for Excellence in Stone Sculpture. In 2022 she was the recipient of the Moorlarben Acquisitive prize, with the sculpture installed in the Mudgee arts precinct. Public art commissions include an abstract stone sculpture for Cessnock City Council and a stone owl for Lake Macquarie City Council, to be installed later this year.
For more information about Bridget, visit www.leantostudio.com.au
Visit the Inside Outside Sculpture Plinth in Ted Mack Civic Park day or night.
Speak to our Arts & Culture team
For further information, please contact Council's Arts and Culture team.
Telephone:02 9936 8100