A sculpture made to address loneliness has won lots of friends in the Garden.

“It's a figure sitting on a bench,” says Tegan Georgette, a 30-year-old artist from Kembla Grange who made her Sculpture in the Garden debut this year with an androgynous ceramic character titled You are Not Alone.

“Conceptually I was inspired by certain hardships I had experienced during Covid and then also becoming a new mother. So I wanted to create a sculpture that was about loneliness, but offering a loving, kind presence for people that may feel lonely. And also to talk about loneliness in general, so that people feel less lonely in their loneliness.”

Her figure sits in a meditative pose on a wooden bench with plenty of room either side, inviting company. It's near the duck pond at Wollongong Botanic Garden, no. 13 on the outdoor trail of sculptures that have been on display since March 18.

“I wanted it to be not a specific gender," Tegan says. "It could be a human, but it also could be an animal or a being of the gardens. I wanted to create a feeling that it was like a little garden being that's come out and sat on the bench, but it's also human enough to be relatable as a human.

"For the texture of the sculpture, I've mimicked bark or dirt and sand to be reflective of nature.”

“It's got a lot of tribal carvings. I wanted to mimic patterns in nature but also patterns that the sculpture might have embellished itself in – basic lines and those kind of geometrics shapes that we see in a lot of indigenous cultures.”

Tegan had a baby girl shortly before the pandemic and knows first-hand about the isolation and loneliness that early motherhood may bring. Ironically, she says, there were times during the Covid restrictions that she felt less lonely, as she didn’t see her friends out having fun when she wasn’t.

Tegan has channelled these experiences into her artwork, aiming to create a space where people can take a seat next to her contemplative character, sit and enjoy its “understanding presence”. 

“Lockdown also made me realise that there are people out there that loneliness, that isolation is part of their everyday life. And when the world is going on, it's hard to notice that sometimes some people feel that way. So even though we are out of the lockdowns, I wanted to acknowledge that there are people that still experience isolation.”

Tegan – who studied at Sydney’s National Arts School and Wollongong University – ran into several challenges in the making process, not least that her family was moving house at the time. “I had two failed sculptures that just fell apart," she says. "They weren't stable enough, because clay's obviously very malleable and soft when you're working with it. It was a balancing act.

“It's smaller than I had initially planned. But I'm really happy. I was thinking of it as a sculpture for adults, but I feel like at the size it ended up being, it became really relatable for the kids. So I think that was like a happy accident.”

Children have loved its size, as it is similar to theirs, Tegan says. Her own daughter, four-year-old Lyla, used it like a doll.

“She just was obsessed with it and she would dress it up, play with it, and she was upset when it went off to the Gardens. We've had to go and visit it a number of times.

"I've had a lot of feedback that the kids loved it – they climb on it and they get photos sitting next to it, meditating like it. I've had a lot of people sending me photos. 

"I also noticed that people had been putting flowers in its lap, which I also thought was really beautiful; it's that innate urge – like an altar or an offering. It's become a very interactive piece.”

It’s Tegan’s first time participating in Sculpture in the Garden. “It offered me the funding and the reason to create something at a larger scale, which was amazing," she says.

“But then also creating something that I knew it was going be part of the community was really beautiful. And then also being able to see how that concept unfolded and how people interacted with it. That’s become an artwork in itself, I think – all the pictures I've received, seeing the flowers and hearing the stories.

"That interactive element with the community is probably the biggest thing I've got out of it. It’s a connection. I think that's the amazing thing that art can do is create connections between people or connect with them on a deeper level.”

Painting is her primary medium and after this show Tegan will be returning to work on a new large-scale canvas. “I’m going to be looking into learning how to do some mural painting. It has inspired me doing this project to think about ways to bring my painting as public art.”

The figure’s fate after the exhibition ends at 5pm on Sunday, April 30, is currently uncertain but young Lyla is unlikely to be pleased with the outcome.

“She wants it back in the lounge room,” Tegan says, laughing. “But I'd like to sell it, see if anyone wants to have it in their home.”

Sculpture in the Garden is at Wollongong Botanic Garden until Sunday, April 30.

Look out for Tegan's stall at the Good Stuff Markets at Clay Wollongong where she will be selling art prints and sculptures on Sunday, May 7, 9am-2pm at 70 Keira Street, Wollongong.

Send enquiries via Instagram to @tegan.georgette