William Versace

This work is part of Curatorial+Co.’s Sydney Contemporary 2025 presentation.

With equal measure of fascination and concern, William Versace began his Sydney Contemporary 2025 body of work, 'Future Unearthed', with his own creations of plastiglomerates. Known colloquially as ‘plastic gems’ these naturally fused anthropogenic rocks are made from a mixture of natural debris and plastic, and are found embedded in the earth’s surface. As a physical marker of the human impact on the environment, these amalgamations point to what relics our descendants may unearth in the future.

It is only when the viewer looks closer, reads a title, or sits with the works a little longer that the engagement with nature becomes apparent. The more obvious reference to organic form is the 'Geode' series, which stands tall in its crystalline form. These towering columns reveal modes of removal and impression with one side exposed, emulating an open-cut gemstone. An uncovered gem sparkles at the opening. The Geodes meet you with a hollowed ‘ghost form’ of household consumer waste – gaming controllers, vapes, phones, and COVID tests. Immortalised in amber resin, like a mosquito trapped in sap, these are relics of our own time, a social marker of globalisation and digitisation.