Aweigh; The anchor is said to be aweigh immediately when it is clear of the bottom of the seafloor.

Coinciding with the opening of his first solo exhibition in New Zealand, Echoes from the Sound Barrier, AWEIGH is a newly commissioned installation by Ashburton-born artist David Rickard for the entrance foyer of the Ashburton Art Gallery and Heritage Centre.

Resonating with works made for his exhibition, in particular, Vertical Horizon – a six-minute film loop of vertical seashore footage – AWEIGH speaks to concepts readily found in Rickard’s multimedia practice; that of place, connection, and gravity.

AWEIGH is constructed of found materials – anchors and ropes – from two antipodal locations in Greymouth, New Zealand and Porto Vigo, Spain. These geographically distant objects that were once lowered to the seafloor are now conjoined, aligned with their original orientations and separated only by the tension of gravity.

This play with the intangible forces of the universe open conversations around our perception of the physical world and our place within it. Rickard also responds to the location of the work in the Gallery foyer, a double-height wall which typically separates the ground from the first floor.