CAPSTONE | SYDNEY, 2019
"The Square and the Circle: a space of playfulness contemplation,” 2019. Comber Street Studio, Paddington, Australia.
The Capstone group exhibition at Cofa, UNSW, Master’s of Art, encompassed Gaia’s site-specific installation called “The Square and the Circle: a space of playfulness contemplation” 2019 .
A child enters a sacred space. Music activates the experience—he hops, he plays, then pauses to sit, contemplating the unknown with wonder.
In this site-specific installation, Gaia Starace brings together five interconnected elements within one unified gallery space: a mixed-media artwork on fine Italian cotton, a handcrafted Japanese wooden stool, a Roman-style hopscotch game in vinyl, and sound performed live on opening night by cellist Joanne Hwang from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. These components are designed to interact as a single, immersive environment.
Referencing the sacred geometry of the Pantheon and the symbolism of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, Gaia dismantles and reimagines the circle and square, guiding the audience on a symbolic journey into their own sacred space.
Participants “hop through history,” moving through Roman numerals embedded in a familiar childhood game, before arriving at stillness, seated before a contemplative, monochromatic canvas. The Japanese stool mirrors the painting’s geometry, forming a meditative zone that evokes the Zen principle of “just sitting.” A circular form within the stool leads visually and spiritually to the shimmering diamond-dust circle in the artwork, suggesting continuity, stillness, and inner transformation.
The painting itself—layered with oil, pigment, and diamond dust—explores the tension and harmony between stillness and motion, expressed through dual tones of blue. Light catches the dusted circle, hinting at the intangible: mystery, the unknown, and the spiritual.
Through sound, light, geometry, and movement, Gaia invites the audience to transcend the physical space—awakening a sense of wonder, presence, and reconnection with the sacred self.
