Design and Art Australia Online

Mosaic artist Cynthia Turner is a New Zealander who moved to Australia in the early 1980s. After leaving school she attended Auckland Teachers College and in 1968 became a primary school teacher. After four years she left teaching to design and make clothes for a stall in a market. At the same time she became involved in a community theatre group under the direction of Warwick Broadhead. The shows directed by Broadhead became famous on the alternative art scene in Auckland in the 1970s. This experience of physical and visual theatre initiated her move to Sydney in 1981 to study physical theatre. She became a member of Circus Solarus, a street theatre company featuring stilt walkers and interactive characters in outrageous costumes. In 1984 she was employed as a community arts coordinator by Fairfield City Council in Western Sydney. Here she developed her skills in community consultation and community engagement in the making of the artworks.

Her transition from a street performer to highly sought after mosaic artist began by chance when she helped her cousin, an architect, to design her own garden. The garden featured a mosaic covered seat. As a stroke of luck a representative from Kids Activities Newtown saw the garden and, knowing of Turner’s involvement with community arts, asked her to work with the students from local schools to make a mosaic artwork for a wall within the grounds of Enmore Swimming Pool. The artwork was completed in 1989. This would turn out to be the start of a successful career as a public artist specializing in designing and making mosaic artworks for streetscapes, parks, community centres and schools. Turner’s artworks can be found in Sydney, Wollongong, Dubbo and Tasmania. Most are public artworks commissioned by local councils and can be seen in the form of public benches, mosaic walls and footpaths; they all feature mosaic surfaces. Turner has used a variety of materials in these mosaics, such as handmade tiles, broken ceramic tiles, sheeted glass tiles and cut stained glass. Typically, Turner’s commissions are designed and constructed in her Newtown studio before being transporting to the site for installation.

Turner works within a variety of collaborative frameworks to produce her artworks. On the community art projects, local residents are often involved in all aspects of the project, from the design to the laying of the mosaic. On other projects she works to design the mosaics for designated sites as part of landscape designs developed in-house by the respective council’s design teams. In 2008 she worked with artists Lorraine Brown and Norelle Thomas from Coomaditchie Artists Co-operative in Wollongong to design and lay a mosaic inset for a walking path in Mt Kembla. This community artwork features the words of a poem by a local poet. Cynthia, Lorraine and Norelle worked with the students of Mt Kembla to make ceramic birds and animals to illustrate the poem. Lorraine and Norelle co-designed mosaics with Turner in her studio. Turner and other members of the Coomaditchie Artists Co-operative worked with a tiler to lay the mosaic.

In 2008, in collaboration with the Sutherland Shire Council’s landscape architect, Turner worked on a seat for the Engadine town centre. Made from glass tiles, the mosaic features the native flora of the Engadine bushland.

Writers:

Hosking, Thomas Note: Thomas Hosking is a landscape architecture student at FBE, UNSW. Dr De Lorenzo is an art historian and senior lecturer at FBE, UNSW.
De Lorenzo, Dr Catherine Note:

Date written:

2008

Last updated:

2011

Status:

peer-reviewed