Just outside of Broken Hill lies the sculptor garden called The Living Desert. Here, elevated spectacularly above the plain, are eight huge artworks cut by hand into boulders that weigh up to 8 tonnes. The sculptors were completed over the course of a month or so by an international group of artists, all of whom camped out on the mountain top from the start of the project to the finish.
Nature too has its sculptors amongst the stone monoliths. Branches stark against the blistering sky, while roots hug sinuously around the rock below, holding fast against the mountain wind.
Bajo el Sol Jaguar (Under the Jaguar Sun) is an apt description for the feeling as you stand looking down on the desert that stretches below from Broken Hill, back across to Adelaide and beyond. Ahead of us lies yet more sun scorched earth, before we reach the green belt of the coast line. The artist inspired to create this carving must have felt much the same; his creation captures well the challenge and beauty of the Broken Hill plain.
It was hard not to leave the garden without adding something. Now the Lady in the rock, and the other hand wrought forms stand together with an Inuksuk el Finn, baking together under a Jaguar Sun.
