Well its been a good year for getting my work into the bigger art prize finalist exhibitions so far with the Sulman at the AGNSW and The 37th Alice Prize accepting my paintings and now news that The Melbourne Sculpture Prize have accepted my goat-fox-deer hybrid sculpture-Cervine bovidae! All of these works have been my largest to date so I guess its true that bigger artworks can have more impact! This was the first time I have entered into the Melbourne Sculpture Prize. The selected finalist works will be exhibited at Art Melbourne (Mat 24th – 27th 2012) then at another CBD location for a further 6 weeks. This will be great exposure for my sculpture with the Melbourne audience. So far I have had more sales and positive feedback in Melbourne, even though I am not represented by a gallery there, so am always happy for a chance to exhibit there. Even had my sculptures in the Herald story on The Melbourne Art fair in 2010. Heres the pic!
The sculptures I was working on in Munich finally returned a couple of weeks and I have now completed them. I wanted to use kangaroo parts and applied for a license to hold preserved native fauna from the NSW Department of Wildlife and Conservation but it has now been 7 months and my application has still not been decided upon. Apparently it is a very unusual request and the department need to come to a decision on it but are taking their sweet time. ( In other words have put it on the back burner indefinitely!) So apparently its ok to shoot kangaroos in a cruel and unnecessary culling process so that the 10% of their flesh suitable for human consumption can be exported ( ie profited from), oh and its fine to sell their preserved paws and testicles( yes testicles!) as purses, bottle openers and other kitsch tourist items but god forbid you should want to make artwork from them..especially artwork that potentially raises questions about the later. Anyway as you can see the form is kangaroo-ish but the animal used is a fox.
So the sculptures are a bit cuter than I wanted but I am still pleased with them and the whole experience has fuelled the inspiration for a new installation project for which I have just completed a funding grant. I will be attending a residency at Sundaymorning@ekwc in Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, specifically to develop this new project in ceramics.http://sundaymorning.ekwc.nl/
Yes I know it looks like my work is already in ceramics but all the sculptures of late have been constructed of urethane foam, concrete , paper mache, paint, animal parts etc. Sundaymorning@ekwc is a professional ceramic studio providing technical assistance, supervisors and studios for artist, designers and architects to realise their projects in ceramics. 75% of the attendees have little or no experience of ceramics and that’s me so am really keen to explore this new medium which will ultimately enable the production of a large-scale installation also suitable for outdoor exhibition. planing on showing it at Sculptures in the Vineyards, Hunter valley in November 2013 and also at Artereal gallery in December 2013.Fingers crossed I get the grant to develop this new work.
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