Bidigal Reserve Mosaics, 1991

Lloyd Keleman
Mosaic
Bidigal Reserve North Bondi

Lloyd Kelemen worked across multiple public art projects in the 1980s. His mosaics feature in the Biddigal Reserve playground, North Bondi Children’s Pool, Bondi Pavilion, Bronte Park and Campbell Parade. Here, he creates a series of bright and fantastical creatures for children who use the park.

It is a little known fact that when the mosaic fish was a steel frame (prior to concrete and tiling), it was stolen from Kelemen's studio at Addison Road. A few months later, a friend of the artist spotted the large steel fish frame in a Surry Hills backyard. Kelemen visited the home multiple times to retrieve the large fish but sadly the owners were never home. He then 'reclaimed' his fish, made finishing touches where it was then positioned in Biddigal Reserve where it remains today.

The theft was even discussed on JJ radio (as it was then known) when the Surry Hills home owner phoned in to complain that someone had stole his large fish from his backyard!