It’s unusual for a construction worker to be recognised with a portrait in the gallery or museum that she or he helped build. That is about to change when the north wing opens on Saturday.
A portrait of McDonald-Singh,the site’s traffic control manager,wearing a hard hat and holding a stop sign (aka the lollipop),is one of nine panels in a major new work by Melbourne artist Richard Lewer.
Jo-Anne McDonald-Singh was the manager of traffic control on the construction site that is now the new wing of the Art Gallery of NSW. She is one of many workers captured in artworks by Melbourne’s Richard Lewer.Janie Barrett
Lewer says it pays tribute to the largely unrecognised efforts of hundreds of workers on the north wing over four years,including during COVID-19.
McDonald-Singh was “like a mother to these young builders,the young construction people,the plumbers,the scaffolders,the sparkies,the cranies,everyone”.
In the panels and a suite of drawings commissioned by the Art Gallery,Lewer also captured Smriti,who prevented the spread of COVID-19 on the site,and three steelfixers:Sharmoon Tumupu (aka Sharkboy) and his mates Luke Hollard and Liam Fearn who loved their ghetto blaster.
Lewer also wanted to capture the communities that formed on site,and the small kindnesses that flourished. Sharkboy caught fish for McDonald-Singh. Dave Robins,a construction worker with Richard Crookes Construction,is depicted working on the new gallery in a giant,but he also watered a little plant outside the lunchroom daily. Glenn Baldwin,a health and safety officer with Richard Crookes Construction,encouraged McDonald-Singh to study for a certificate IV in work health and safety;this led to her current role as the corporate health safety environment and quality adviser for Liberty Industrial,a demolition company.
A drawing of John Oliver,managing director of Rammed Earth Constructions,whose team made the earth walls at the Art Gallery of NSW. It is one of the series commissioned to document the workers on site.Richard Lewer
Lewer also drew John Oliver,the managing director of Rammed Earth Constructions,who made the massive rammed earth wall where the panels hang.
The wall’s sweeping curve measures about 250 metres and arches through two levels. Art Gallery of NSW director Michael Brand says it was a real masterstroke that brought together the art and the architecture,and connected the inside and outside. “It does lock everything together,” he said.
Oliver said when the Japanese architects SANAA showed him the plans,he did not know how he would accomplish the task. At 1400 square metres,involving 1000 tonnes of earth gathered from across Sydney and NSW,it was the “biggest job” his team had ever done.
Rammed earth is usually made first on a greenfield site using a bobcat.
But Oliver – whose portrait by Lewer is now displayed in the old gallery – said the new gallery was a busy city site on the side of the hill. They had to invent a new method of blowing the soil into the cavity. Although it used some earth from the site,Oliver searched NSW to find exactly the right tint to make the wall match the sandstone. He found pay dirt in Wagga Wagga.
Compared to the sharp lines and shiny surfaces of SANAA’s architecture,he said the rammed earth’s long and horizontal walls led the visitor through the building. “It has a warmth,and a slightly relaxing feeling.”
John Oliver,managing director of Rammed Earth Constructions,says the wall was his team’s largest job yet.Supplied
Lewer said most people don’t recognise the work that goes into building a new museum or gallery. “I know there are so many sponsors and patrons,but these people are just as important,if not more,than the artists whose works hang on the walls.”
Lewer said McDonald-Singh was always going to be part of the work. McDonald-Singh,53,from Glenwood,said because she was mature the mostly young male workforce would talk to her about their woes and relationships.
Many of the workers were commuting to the site,leaving home at 4am,and missing their families.
“They wouldn’t see their wives,and their wives would have the shits with them. They’d have done something,like have a beer on the bus on the way home.”
She also corrected their manners. Some initially wouldn’t respond to her “good morning”.
“I’d say,if someone speaks,you speak back.” It worked. “If they were in a queue,and the middle one didn’t say it,well,he gets a kick up the bum from the one behind,saying,‘Where’s your manners?’”
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