Habitus visits an artist’s house in Queensland’s Castaway’s Beach, whose gun barrel form was sketched on a restaurant napkin.
March 18th, 2009
Australian artist, Tracey Moffatt, sorely missed the surf, sunshine and space of her native Queensland while living and working in a tiny apartment in New York. When she found a house on the beach designed by one of her architectural idols, Gabriel Poole, she couldn’t resist…
This article appears in Issue 03 of Habitus, on sale now. Photography by Christopher Frederick Jones.
Twice a year, artist and filmmaker Tracey Moffatt swaps her Manhattan studio existence for a spell of sunshine and salt air back home in Queensland, Australia. Margie Fraser visited her Australian home and found the more relaxing counterpart of her very contrasting environments.
Her Chelsea apartment, in the heart of NY’s art precinct, is so small Moffatt admits to “going crazy with lack of space”. Fire engines are ever present in the soundscape of the street below. “Woody Allen is sentimental about them,” she says, “and calls them New York’s lullaby.”
Inside, the loft-cum-working studio has high ceilings and exposed beams, and “not quite enough room to make art”. For her current work in progress, the “Plantation” series, Moffatt is on the train to Brooklyn each morning to a place where she can print old negatives of a “mysterious landscape” that she shot over 12 years ago.
Memories of childhood beach holidays and a hankering for the relaxation that goes hand in hand with sand-encrusted zinc cream on sunburnt skin were revived when Moffatt spotted a house for sale at Castaways Beach just south of Noosa.
The landscape has its own mysterious resonance. Wind-bent banksias, pounding surf and highways of bleached sand are a long way from Chelsea. But the crowning glory was the house on the block – a modest lightweight beach house from the stable of local architect Gabriel Poole. This was the clincher for Moffatt.
“I was homesick for the Australian nature I grew up with – long hot summers spent on Bribie Island and the Sunshine Coast, with the freedom of roaming barefoot all day long and coming home at sundown. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I found a Poole house for sale right by the beach. I jumped at the chance to get it.”
To learn how Tracey Moffatt’s home developed pick up your copy of Habitus issue 03 from your nearest stockist, or subscribe to future issues here.
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
Living Edge definitely has the edge when it comes to supplying furniture for the education sector. With a plethora of brands and collections at their fingertips, Living Edge provides the perfect solution for any learning environment.
The workplace has changed – and it will continue to evolve. With dynamism at the heart of clients’ requirements, architects and designers at leading practices such as Elenberg Fraser are using and recommending Herman Miller’s OE1 products for the future workplace.
Australia’s leading producer of solid-engineered oak flooring has recently launched a new suite of innovative resources to support creativity and ambition in the architecture and design community.
Bidding farewell to mundane and uninspired office spaces, colour has transformed our workplaces into layered and engaging environments. So we sit down with Karina Simpson, Hot Black’s Workplace Lead, to talk about the influence colour has on the workspace landscape through the prism of Herman Miller’s progressive colour philosophy.
Available exclusively from Rogerseller, leading German shower and tapware manufacturer, Hansgrohe’s new collection of luxurious overhead showers and controls feature glass surfaces for a refined and elegant aesthetic.
Discover 100 iconic products by some of Australia’s finest design talents in a brand-new exhibition that commemorates 100 years since Robin Boyd’s birth.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
A Japanese restaurant experience like no other: Kelly Ross has delved into Japanese folklore to respond to the incredible cuisine of hatted chef Nobuyuki Ura.
Polyflor’s own Expona Superplank range redefines the potential for lavish vinyl flooring everywhere.