The Underneath, Gadigal Station Sydney Metro, Sydney, 2024

Callum Morton's The Underneath are two bold and monumental tiled artworks, mirror images marking both entrances of the new Gadigal Station. The tiled artworks suggest two ends of a connected tunnel snaking away into the distance beyond and beneath the station’s entrances.

The tunnel image emerged from the artist’s reflection on the urban transport context, as well as the site’s location near Hyde Park. A swamp in Hyde Park is the former freshwater tributary for the Tank Stream, from which it worked its way down this site, through the city and out at Sydney Cove. Originally a water supply, food source and wetland for the Gadigal people, it later became an early major source of water for the new colony as well as, curiously, a line dividing the settlement between the government and administrative class and the convicts. It now lies beneath the city streets in a tunnel.

The artwork’s clear glazed ceramic tiles, evoke a deep connection to the visual history of underground train stations.

Winsor Fireform in Washington, USA were selected as they have pioneered a porcelain enamel process to print saturated colour onto ceramic and steel tiles. The 200 x 200 tiles have been installed in situ off a scaffold directly onto pre-laid wall-mounted sheets.

The use of glazed ceramic tiles follows the visual tradition that began with the London Tube. Early stations were tiled a different colour to help commuters – even illiterate passengers – immediately distinguish one station from the next. This idea of tiled patterning and imagery employed to create distinctive spaces, has been repeated in countless train systems across the world, from Paris, Berlin, London, and Lisbon, to Naples, Moscow, Stockholm and beyond.

The Underneath’s bold palette and monumental scale bring colour, warmth and celebration to the Metro entrances and the customers journeying between platforms and the street.

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Artist Statement

The Underneath consists of two saturated tiled images of a tunnel turning a corner into the distance.

There are features of moving through underground station systems that are interesting as physical experiences as much as visual ones. For instance, you hear the rumble or feel the breeze of a train before seeing it, and often its direction is unclear. Is it coming or going?  In a similar way these two murals of a turning tunnel don’t define whether the train is leaving or departing, both could be entrances as much as they are exits, points of arrival as much as departure, and in this sense, they echo the movement of the commuters in and out of the station.

The idea of making an image of a tunnel emerged from a range of places. There is the obvious one given the context of the work inside a new train station and historically the form reflects some of the early railway tunnels in NSW, such as those at Woy Woy and Glenbrook. There is also the image of the tunnel in film and animation, in particular Wile E. Coyote’s fake tunnels that the Road Runner could always miraculously pass through.

Most significantly however is the existence of the Tank Stream, the former freshwater tributary that originated from a swamp in Hyde Park and worked its way down this part of the city and out at Sydney Cove. Originally a water supply, food source and wetland for the Gadigal people, it later became an early major source of water for the new colony as well as a line dividing the settlement between the government and administrative class and the convict class. With the building of other water supplies such as Busby’s Bore, the stream became a sewer until finally forming a part of the storm water system, which it remains until this day. The images of the Tank Stream that show it winding its way down to the harbour at this point under the earth had a significant impact on the way we imaged these tunnels.

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Text courtesy Transport for New South Wales.