This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
35.24764° S, 149.06764° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Bruce Armstrong's owl at Belconnen is one of the most argued-about pieces of public art in Canberra, and it is a Powerful Owl.
artsACT identifies the 2011 landmark as an interpretation of that species, standing at the corner of Belconnen Way and Benjamin Way. The Powerful Owl is Australia's largest owl – a serious predator that takes possums out of suburban trees at night and is genuinely present around Canberra – so the subject is local rather than generic.
Armstrong is among Australia's significant sculptors of monumental animal forms, working in a blocky, carved, almost totemic idiom that reads as ancient rather than decorative. His Eagle at Docklands in Melbourne is in the same manner. The Belconnen owl's abstraction is the reason for the arguments: a lot of people expected something more literal, and what they got was a heavy, faceted, brooding form.
That is arguably the correct response to the animal. A Powerful Owl is not charming. It is large, still and predatory, and a cuddly rendering would have been a lie.
The siting is characteristic of Canberra: a major road intersection at the entrance to a town centre, where public art functions as a wayfinding marker for people arriving by car.
Belconnen's earlier oversized object, the giant mushroom that sheltered a playground at the Fresh Food Markets from 1998, no longer exists – so the owl is now the district's landmark by default as well as by design.
Any figures for its size and a materials note are missing from the documentation.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
artsACT identifies Bruce Armstrong’s 2011 landmark sculpture as an interpretation of the Powerful Owl and gives the Belconnen Way / Benjamin Way location.
ACCESS
Roadside/gateway artwork. No safe lawful stopping point has been independently verified, so do not navigate directly to or stop at the landmark.
