REEF REVERIE, 2026
Installation on Cottesloe Beach.
5 individual sculptures
241.8 x 161.3 x 64 cm
(95.2 x 63.5 x 25.2 inches)

Reef Reverie begins with the coral reefs of Rockefeller’s Australian childhood, but finds its visual language in Matisse’s gouaches découpées. Branching marine forms become monumental sweeps of saturated colour, a reef lifted from the sea and set down in the open air.

Where Matisse’s cut-outs are flat and paper, Rockefeller’s have gravity: thickness, edges and weather. Large enough to walk between, they cast shifting shadows across the sand while reflective surfaces catch the Australian sun. At sunset, reds, oranges and blues meet the sky before the whole reef falls into silhouette.

Reef Reverie was selected for Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe 2026 by a curatorial panel including Geoffrey Edwards, former Senior Curator of Sculpture and Glass at the National Gallery of Victoria, and curatorial adviser to Pt. Leo Estate Sculpture Park. The work was supported by the Mostyn Family Foundation Artist Subsidy.

Reef Reverie will be permanently installed at the Aquarium of Western Australia.