From the outset, I was drawn to the reef's seemingly opposing forces, anchored yet buoyant, held down by gravity and held up by pressure. I wanted to harness this opposition, to play within an almost-impossible balance, so that the reef might appear in a state of suspension.
I imagined the reef not as a collection of fixed objects, but as a series of encounters: approached from the surface, descended upon, circled, passed through, and slowly understood. The work unfolds; glimpses of form, shifts of light, sudden openings, before dissolving again into the surrounding water.
The form derives from simple geometry; a cone, divided into rings. The rings tilt, open, and close, creating passages that both reveal and conceal. With no orienting corners, they resist a fixed view, and invite a continuous negotiation between inside and outside, above and below, body and space.
I wanted to create a place that could be equally embraced by divers and marine life. Surfaces become feeding grounds, voids become shelter, and over time the work is transformed by what gathers there. It is shaped as much by currents and coral as by my intention. This collaboration with nature offered a certain freedom, an understanding that I was setting the stage, and that sea life would ultimately take the lead.
For me, Wonder Reef is a living artwork. It is never still, never complete. It shifts with movement, with tides, with life itself; a kind of reverse hanging garden, growing and changing, existing quietly beneath the surface, ready to be discovered, and rediscovered.
Dr. Daniel Templeman