If you’ve found yourself in Circular Quay over the past few days, you might have noticed a gleaming new addition to the foreshore. Last week (on Thursday, September 25) the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) unveiled Ancient Feelings; a spectacular bronze sculpture by acclaimed British artist Thomas J Price – and it’s here to stay until April 2026.
Sitting with a striking silent authority on the Tallawoladah Lawn overlooking Warrane/Sydney Harbour, the three-metre figure is the first in a brand-new series of annual public works, commissioned thanks to a major gift from the Balnaves family on behalf of The Balnaves Foundation, in honour of philanthropist Neil Balnaves AO. Known for his belief that art should be accessible to all, Balnaves’ legacy lives on through this program, which will see a run of large-scale sculptures take over one of Sydney’s most historically and culturally charged sites.
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Price’s debut public commission in Australia, Ancient Feelings depicts a fictional woman – majestic, monumental and glowing in bronze – looking out across the harbour. The piece is a deliberate play on the tradition of heroic monuments, and one that challenges us to think about who is (and isn’t) seen and celebrated in our public spaces.
“Ancient Feelings raises questions about who gets to be seen and who gets to be valued,” Price explains. “To have a fictional representation of a black woman, beaming in this golden bronze at a scale that is only associated with power, praise and high standing, I hope it will be an absolute joy for many people and for others it may provoke discomfort, and that tension is precisely where the work finds its strength.”
The sculpture arrives off the back of a huge year for Price, whose large-scale works have recently taken centre stage in New York’s Times Square and Florence’s Piazza della Signoria. By working in bronze, he taps into a material long associated with permanence, power and commemoration – but flips the tradition on its head, celebrating stories and identities that public art has historically ignored.
For the MCA, the new Tallawoladah Lawn Commission isn’t just about beautifying the harbour foreshore, it’s about bringing contemporary art into the public domain, sparking conversations around monuments, and creating space for big ideas in one of the city’s busiest precincts.
“Art in public space is unique in its ability to create dialogue; everyone has an opinion about the art they might experience,” says MCA Director Suzanne Cotter. “In an era where the role of the monument has never been more hotly debated, this annual public sculpture series offers propositions and time for reflection from living artists engaged with our contemporary world.”
To mark the unveiling, the MCA is rolling out a program of talks, workshops and walking tours, designed to bring audiences closer to the themes behind the work.
Whether you find Ancient Feelings awe-inspiring, unsettling, or somewhere in between, it’s hard to miss, and that’s the point. This golden-toned figure, standing with quiet confidence on the edge of the harbour, invites Sydneysiders to question the role of art in celebrating the figures who have shaped our city.