WILLIAM VERSACE
When the Urchin Spawns
Plaster, raw clay, handmade pigments, powdered pigments, ink, sea urchin spine, rabbit skin glue, resin 62 x 52cm
$10000
Formed from the fractured spines of local sea urchins, this work traces the delicate threshold between vitality and collapse within Sydney’s marine ecosystems. Using a contemporary scagliola technique, the pigments—ground from what once guarded a living organism—are suspended within plaster to become both memorial and medium, embodying the tension between beauty and degradation. Created in dialogue with the waters surrounding Kamay and Botany Bay, When The Urchin Spawns echoes the ecological shifts beneath the surface: the slow unravelling of kelp forests, the silent proliferation of urchin barrens. Through alchemical transformation, William Versace reimagines these remnants as relics of resilience, questioning what survives when balance is lost. At once forensic and devotional, the work situates human gesture within a continuum of natural processes, urging a deeper empathy for the fragile architectures of the sea—and the futures we are spawning within them.