The Absence of Three Print Page

The Absence of Three commemorates Barbara Cheadle and her granddaughters, Rebecca and Jessica Campbell, who were tragically killed in a car crash on the Pacific Highway south of Bulahdelah on 5 March 2004. This artwork, conceptualized by Jackson Teece, is incorporated into the safety screen element of the Southern Interchange Bridge of the Bulahdelah Bypass.

The artwork includes a flower pattern fixed to the safety screens of the southbound exit ramp based on an existing memorial of three metal Tibouchina flowers in a side street near the scene of the crash. The Tibouchina flowers hold special significance for the Campbells. The safety screen is comprised of layers of mesh designed to represent a field of flowers out of which three flowers have been cut, leaving a void in the field that mourns the loss of these three lives. The background of the sky and the light falling on the mesh highlights the emptiness of these three spaces. The remaining forms exist as an abstract gesture of their former unity – scattered within a field where once there were three that completed the picture.

On March 5, 2004, Rebecca, Campbell aged 9, Jessica Campbell aged 8,  and their grandmother, Barbara Cheadle, were killed in a crash on the Pacific Highway, just south of Bulahdelah. A semi-trailer hit the back of a stationary ute, crossed to the wrong side of the road and crushed Mrs Cheadle's car.

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