Of Snowflakes & Spacetime - life, symmetry & the evolution of the universe

Toyota Community Spirit Gallery presents the sixth annual indoor outdoor sculpture exhibition

Of Snowflakes & Spacetime life, symmetry & the evolution of the universe

27 October 2010 to March 2011 Toyota Australia 155 Bertie Street, Port Melbourne, Victoria Gallery Hours Mon- Fri 9am to 5pm or by appointment. Inquiries Ken Wong 0419 570 846

Toyota Community Spirit Gallery The

Toyota Community Spirit Gallery is an initiative of Toyota Community Spirit, Toyota Australia’s corporate citizenship program.

Toyota Community Spirit develops partnerships that share Toyota’s skills, networks, expertise and other resources with the community.

The Toyota Community Spirit Gallery aims to provide space for artists, especially emerging artists to show their work.

The space is provided free of charge to exhibiting artists. No commission is charged on sales and Toyota provides an exhibition launch and develops a catalogue for each exhibition.

The gallery has now shown works by over 590 artists. This project is mounted in consultation with Hobsons Bay City Council and the City of Port Phillip.

2010 Finalists & Projects

$10,000 Toyota Community Spirit Artist Travel Award All exhibitors in the Toyota Community Spirit Program are eligible to apply for the $10,000 Toyota Community Spirit Artist Travel Award. The Artist Travel Award is an initiative designed to provide artists with an opportunity to advance their career and expand their horizons through travel. The award invites artists to conceive a project involving travel either interstate or overseas that they believe has the potential to significantly enhance the development of their artistic career. A $2000 Encouragement Award will also be presented to one of the finalists.

The Toyota Community Spirit Artist Travel Award project is mounted in consultation with the Australia Business Arts Foundation, Hobsons Bay City Council and the City of Port Phillip. For further information about the award winners, visit www.watcharts.com.au

Marynes Avila

Research in Argentina to visually document the work of the ‘Mothers of Plaza de Mayo’, the remarkable organization of Argentine women who became a worldwide symbol of human rights by marching peacefully on the site of the government house (Plaza de Mayo) every Thursday since 1977, to protest the disappearance of their children during the Argentine Army Regime. This research will be the basis of a new body of work to be shown as a series of photographs, drawings, short film and installations in future Australian and overseas exhibits.

Tim Craker

This project is a tour to Turkey, lndia and Malaysia with artist’s residencies in each country to collect ideas and inspiration for new work based on pattern in everyday life. This will culminate in the execution of a commissioned work for a boutique art hotel in Georgetown, Penang. The focus will also be on developing new contacts with a view to future projects and exhibition opportunities and further developing my international profile.

William Eicholtz

To research and study cloud formations in Italian and French Baroque churches. I have been developing my figurative work in recent years using the ecstatic language of baroque ornamentation, with particular reference to altarpieces and abstract cloud and sunray formations. This natural development will only be facilitated fully by the opportunity to spend an extended period with this architecture and sculpture. In Australia, we have the European cultural heritage, but are not old enough for the history. Our identity is somewhere in between and this project addresses this dilemma.

2010 Finalists & Projects Susan Frisch

This project will involve travel to Portland, Oregon USA and two interstate locations (NSW & TAS). lt will incorporate a series of glass workshops and conferences and an on-site visit to The Styx Valley in Tasmania. Here I will research, photograph, sketch and collect samples, this material will form the basis for my first solo exhibition, which will be completed at the end of the project.

Carmen Reid

To combine contemporary and historical perspectives, my travel coincides with the Venice Biennale in Italy where I will also undertake a self-guided study of Baroque Rome and participate in a carving workshop in the marble quarries of Tuscany. Visits to London, Prague and Berlin will expand networks to initiate dialogue for future projects.

Bonnie Lane

To undertake professional and artistic training, development, and networking in New York City for a period of 3 months including an internship at Harvestworks Digital Media Lab, business training and networking courses at multiple institutions, and a Super8 film class at 3rd Ward Studio. The trip will assist with the development of my professional career through access and training with new equipment and tools including video, film and sound production and editing, whilst learning and working alongside highly regarded professionals accessing invaluable business skills and career advice and opening a new network of international contacts.

Julie Shiels

I would like to spend 6 weeks in China visiting Shanghai, Hong Kong and including an artist residency in Beijing researching a new project called New Machines. This project is about invention - the aspirations and inspirations but also the follies and failures that accompany the creative urge. New Machines will connect to China as one of the fastest growing engines of the world economy and also be a metaphor for the obsessive drive that compels artists to create.

Jasmine Targett

Life Support Systems: We Follow the Light. The purpose of this research project is to investigate the Earth’s life support system through a series of atmospheric, observational and scientific studies. We Follow the Light is based around a journey to follow the path of light that the sun travels across Australia from the easternmost point (153”38’ E) to the westernmost point (113”09’ E) in one day.

Of Snowflakes & Spacetime Featuring the works of Helen Alexander Julia M Anderson Charles Aquilina Marynes Avila Aliey Ball Jodi Blokkeerus Drasko Boljevic Cherelyn Brearley Carlisle Katrina Carter Vladimir Chirokov Conrad Clark Betty Collier Julie Collins Tim Craker Jim Curry Dalia Andrei Davidoff Rehgan De Mather Rebecca Delange Sean Diamond Melanie Fitzmaurice Avis Gardner

Thanks To

Mandy Gunn Robert Hague Craig Haire Lucie Hallenstein Peter Hannaford Ashlee Hope Nick Ilton Giovanna Inserra Rudi Jass Derek John Gaby Jung Hanif Khairi Marco Luccio Craig MacDonald Angela Macdougall David Marshall Sheena Mathieson Janice McCarthy Carrie McGrath Sally Miller Lenni Morkel-Kingsbury Mtokio Tracy Muirhead

Mike Nicholls Gael O’Leary Mirta Ouro Cristina Palacios Helen Pallikaros Penny Parkinson Jason Patten Louis Patterson Chandra Paul Carmen Reid Fatih Semiz Julie Shiels Shoso Shimbo Brendon Taylor Sholto Turner Mary Van den Broek Ri Van Veen Simon Venturi Kate Vivian Liz Walker Carmel Wallace Anthea Williams Kevin Young

Tania Blackwell, Hobsons Bay City Council Melinda Martin, Australia Business Arts Foundation Louisa Scott, City of Port Phillip Toyota Community Spirit Gallery Committee Katarina Persic, Toyota Australia Steve Blakebrough

Catalogue Editing Ken Wong (watcharts.com.au) Pre Press & Graphic Design Sandra Kiriacos IMAGE FRONT COVER Rain Maker (detail) Drasko Boljevic, Mixed media 2010 INSIDE COVER Nest (detail) Helen Pallikaros, Wire and pins 2007 IMAGE THIS SPREAD Denkyu Forest (detail) Andrei Davidoff, Translucent porcelain and mixed media 2010 The opinions and points of view expressed by participants through the artworks and artists statements in this exhibition and catalogue are those of the individual person or persons and are not intended to reflect the position of Toyota Australia.

Ken Wong Curator

This exhibition

is the 24th in a continuous program since 2004 and the 6th Annual Indoor Outdoor Sculpture show highlighting the diversity and excellence of sculpture practice in Victoria through the works of 69 artists.

The title, Of Snowflakes and Spacetime; life symmetry and the evolution of the universe, has been inspired by a chapter in the book, The Fabric of the Cosmos by American Physicist Brian Greene. The book is a fascinating look at the history and development of modern physics and theories of the nature of the universe, from Sir Isaac Newton, Einstein’s Relativity and the development of Quantum Mechanics through to modern String Theory, which proposes that the universe consists of multiple invisible dimensions which are currently beyond our perception.

The chapter explores the essential symmetry of life and of the universe, not only from the obvious standpoint of the symmetrical shape of fundamental elements like planets and atoms, and the cellular composition and body shapes of animals and humans, but through more abstract notions of symmetry which suggest that the essential laws of physics governing space and time in our corner of the universe, hold true, whether on planet Earth or some far off corner of a remote galaxy.

To me, this notion of symmetry has a deep relevance in describing the relative commonality of our existence as human beings. For all our different backgrounds,

our experience of life and the world we live in is a shared, essentially human experience, that links us all in a multitude of both tangible and mysterious ways.

What I find particularly fascinating is the way the works of so many artists seem to reflect this common human experience and suggest underlying connections between us all. As a curator, I am always looking for a common thread, a thematic context, through which a cohesive exhibition can be mounted.

In the case of this exhibition, it seems obvious to me that while there is enormous diversity in the histories and practice of the exhibiting artists, there are many common themes that reflect a growing awareness of the nature of our evolution as human beings, and an awareness that while the universe may for all intents and purposes be infinite, Planet Earth and the environment that sustains us is a relative microcosm of increasingly and alarmingly finite resources.

As a species our evolution is at a critical stage, the knowledge and technology we have acquired places us in a unique position relative to all of our ancestors; the universe beckons. The trick now is how to wake up, survive and weather the storm of our own awakening; to learn to care for and sustain the unlikely, often beautiful, always precious, and overridingly fragile existence we have all been given.

Welcome to the dawning Of Snowflakes and Spacetime.

Ken Wong is the Director of Watch Arts, a Victorian based contemporary arts consultancy. He has worked in the fine arts industry for over fourteen years in both commercial and community arts, curating and managing a host of projects including gallery and outdoor sculpture exhibitions.

Exhibitors

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Helen Alexander ............. 10 Julia M Anderson ............. 11 Charles Aquilina ............. 12 Marynes Avila ............. 13 Aliey Ball ............. 14 Jodi Blokkeerus ............. 15 Drasko Boljevic ............. 16 Cherelyn Brearley ............. 18 Carlisle ............. 19 Katrina Carter ............. 20 Vladimir Chirokov ............. 21 Conrad Clark ............. 22 Betty Collier ............. 23 Julie Collins & Derek John ..... 24 Tim Craker ............. 25 Jim Curry ............. 26 Dalia ............. 27 Andrei Davidoff ............. 28 Rehgan De Mather ............. 29 Rebecca Delange ............. 30 Sean Diamond ............. 31 Melanie Fitzmaurice ............. 32 Avis Gardner ............. 33 Mandy Gunn ............. 34 Robert Hague ............. 35 Craig Haire ............. 36 Lucie Hallenstein ............. 37 Peter Hannaford ............. 38 Ashlee Hope ............. 39 Nick Ilton ............. 40 Giovanna Inserra ............. 41 Rudi Jass ............. 42 Gaby Jung ............. 43 Hanif Khairi ............. 44

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Marco Luccio ............. 45 Craig MacDonald ............. 46 Angela Macdougall ............. 47 David Marshall ............. 48 Sheena Mathieson ............. 49 Janice McCarthy ............. 50 Carrie McGrath ............. 51 Sally Miller ............. 52 Lenni Morkel-Kingsbury ......... 53 Mtokio ............. 17 Tracy Muirhead ............. 54 Mike Nicholls ............. 55 Gael O’Leary ............. 56 Mirta Ouro ............. 57 Cristina Palacios ............. 58 Helen Pallikaros ............. 59 Penny Parkinson ............. 60 Jason Patten ............. 61 Louis Patterson ............. 62 Chandra Paul ............. 63 Carmen Reid ............. 64 Fatih Semiz ............. 65 Julie Shiels ............. 66 Shoso Shimbo ............. 67 Brendon Taylor ............. 68 Sholto Turner ............. 69 Mary Van den Broek ............. 70 Ri Van Veen ............. 71 Simon Venturi ............. 72 Kate Vivian ............. 73 Liz Walker ............. 74 Carmel Wallace ............. 75 Anthea Williams ............. 76 Kevin Young ............. 77

Sculptures

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are located in four separate areas; Atrium, Gallery, Bistro & Outdoors.

Bistro Gallery

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Outdoor works Atrium Main entrance

IMAGE: Esto Perpetua (once upon a time stood still) by Lenni Morkel-Kingsbury, Collected & altered chair, history book & white thread, 66x46x102cm approx, 2009

Helen Alexander

Sits Callitris timber and steel galvanised tube, 100 x 100 x 100cm, 2010 $1850

Helen is an emerging sculptor who completed her studies at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2009. Her art practice is predominately concerned with the representation of the figure and the use of the figure to express emotion and/or motion.

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Julia M Anderson My sculpture practice is strongly linked to the local environment and a concern about working ‘with nature’ for sustainability. I like the idea of these designs made in non-toxic, robust materials ‘growing’ together as though reaching-out for a combined sustainable future.

Julia completed a degree majoring in music composition with a sub-major in media before becoming a music teacher. She then began designing sound-sculptures but her practice went into recess while raising her family. She recommenced making sculptures in 2007.

Moonah Dance #6 Bronze and sandstone 215 x 72 x 72cm, 2009 $20,000

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Charles Aquilina

Confined?

Forged/formed Steel/Corten, 300 x 150 x 170cm, 2010, $18,000

Charles is based at Mount Macedon and has been developing his sculpture practice and exhibition profile over the past twenty years. His public commissions include several projects for the Macedon Shire and his works have been represented in various exhibitions including the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show and the Toorak Village Sculpture Festival.

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This work aims

to depict the

struggle of breaking free from that which supports and confines us.

Marynes Avila

Metamorphous (detail) 3000 recycled factory off cuts, 300cm diameter, 2009, NFS

This work is an extension of my ongoing project ‘The Public Narratives of Multiples’.

Consisting of recycled factory off cuts, ‘Metamorphous’ incorporates large quantities of neglected, discarded materials to investigate the quality in quantity and the uniqueness of each unit and its interrelationship with the group, exploring their resonance in the public realm.

Marynes completed a Bachelor of Education in Buenos Aires, Argentina and migrated to Australia in 1988. She has pursued her interest in visual arts for many years through education and exhibition, recently being awarded a Masters of Arts - Art in Public Space with distinction from RMIT University. She has participated in forty-five group shows including Agora Gallery in SOHO, New York and McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park and has held seven solo shows in Melbourne and at the Embassy of Argentina, Canberra. She has completed twentyone public art projects including a collaborative work for the foyer of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and works for the Frankston City Council; City of Greater Dandenong and Shaanxi University of Art and Textiles in China. Marynes has been the recipient of many art awards and her work has been featured in numerous publications.

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Aliey Ball

Diato, Modified gypsum, glass fibres & paint, 80 x 62 x 25cm, 2010, $6500

My work explores

the human / nature relationship. I’m a firm believer that humans are “natural”, including our technologies and built environments. We are one part of a very complex system.

This piece is a single element taken from a larger series of sculptures, which explore complex systems. Each has an orifice and phallus to facilitate interconnectedness toward emergent structures. The name Diato is derived from diatom, ancient ancient unicellular algae, that coexist in colonies. I am influenced in part by the writings of Deleuze and Gauttari of non-hierarchical structures and rhizomatic growth, where system complexity is understood via a sequence of plateaus. This form was inspired by extensive studies into non-human life forms, especially orchids, algae and slime mould.

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Aliey is a Melbourne-based artist working in sculpture, painting and installation. As a student at Victorian College of the Arts she won the NGV Undergraduate Award and was commissioned to install a permanent work by Andrea Hull, then director of VCA. Since graduating, she has exhibited in solo and group shows, won awards, arts grants and undertaken several commissions for site-specific public art. She is a finalist for this year’s Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition & Awards and is working on a largescale, public art commission for the Dandenong Hospital, Southern Health.

She frequently engages with indigenous, refugee, migrant and disability groups as a community arts collaborator.

Jodi Blokkeerus Jodi is a Melbourne based sculptor and illustrator and is currently studying Visual Arts at RMIT. She self-published her first children’s book ‘Chasing feathers’ in 2008, which follows the story of Yogi and the creatures who operate the traffic lights.

Jodi has been exhibiting her sculptures (creatures) in a number of group shows over the last couple of years and has just finished her third picture book.

The dirty laundry of Professor Higginstein, Mixed media, 25 x 45 x 45cm, 2010, $750

September 8th 1879 There is yet more work to be done before specimen 2.58 is ready to be integrated with his fellow peers. The beast is experiencing laboured breathing, a ringing sound when he enters a corridor and a slight inky residue beneath the left foot. I fear I will not be able to correct these in-discrepancies and he will have to be isolated or terminated.

Prof. Higgenstein

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Drasko Boljevic One of a series of works made with everyday objects, ‘The Rain Maker’ is an example of the power of the ordinary in this digital age. The exploration of playful kinetic soundscapes resulted in this hypnotic piece, which captures the viewer to sense its chaotic melody.

The Rain Maker Mixed media, 120 x 120 x 4cm, 2010, $3000

Born in the former Yugoslavia in 1969, Drasko has lived in Australia since 1993. He studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb, Croatia and became a participant of the ‘Modern Times’ anti-war arts movement.

He was selected for the ‘Talented European Sculptors’ exhibition’ in the city of Labin in 1992. He graduated as a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in sculpture at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1997 and in the same year he opened, in partnership, Azibi Gallery in St Kilda, an art gallery for objects, furniture and interior design, which operated until 2001. Drasko’s artistic aspirations have seen his work extend to theatre, whether as set designer or prop and puppet maker such as in: the Malthouse play ‘Babes in the Woods’ (2005) or Garry Gilligan’s Production of ‘Possum Magic’ (2009). In recent years he has continued to explore various mediums and exhibit at a variety of venues including a solo exhibition of painting and sculptures at Brightspace Gallery in St. Kilda (2008). In 2009 he was finalist of the prestigious Sulman Prize, shown at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. His current work is an eclectic mix, fashioning period works with a comic art approach. He draws inspiration from the old masters with his passion for modernism shinning through with vibrant colors and the use of modern techniques.

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Mtokio Mtokio was born in Auch in the French Pyrenees in 1960. His family of Italian/ Gypsy/French origins were cattle and horse farmers and part of the French Resistance during the war. From his upbringing he learnt many technical skills, a strong work ethic and the importance of human values, which are deeply instilled in him as well as hunter/gatherer traditions and a love of nature. His Gypsy father awoke in him a love of art and he started painting at age ten. At nineteen he formed a friendship with Master Branko Papovic / School of Belgrad who incited him to wood gravure. He became involved with the avant-garde movement in Paris and participated in the creation of many art spaces for culture and live broadcasts in collaboration with open access Paris TV station Teleplaisance. Mtokio immigrated to Australia in 2009 and has found new inspiration in Natimuk and Horsham where he has collected many rusty agricultural pieces making sculptures with them in his workshop in Williamstown. He is currently developing a cross-culture project with Vicki Crowley, Senior Lecturer at the University of South Australia.

Seton (detail) Metal and glass, 235 x 80 x 80cm, 2010 NFS

My sculptures are intuitive expressions of my imagination interacting and playing with found objects like agricultural machinery, and situations relating to where I am and the people surrounding me. They are poetical animal and musical expressions that can be played with by metaphor and association.

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Cherelyn Brearley My work delves

into challenging traditional notions of the feminine by utilising a traditional craft technique to create restrictive wearable objects/sculptures. My methodology is based on my reading of the Belgian Feminist, philosopher and linguist Luce Irigaray, whose work aims to reveal a perceived masculinist philosophy underlying language and gestures toward a “new” feminine language that would allow women to express themselves outside of a phallocentric discourse. It is through her theories on mimesis, masquerade and mother/daughter communication that I have found a way to express my interests in feminism and the female body. I describe learning how to crochet from my Mother just how you learn to write each letter before you make a word, I learnt a variety of stitches to make a pattern. I followed my Mother’s tuition and actions, and learnt the designs slowly.

I have also learnt by copying old crochet and in time I have memorised most traditional stiches and patterns. Although Irigaray comments that there is no ‘essential womanliness’, she discusses masquerade and mimesis as a way to rapture the status quo and to expose the fragility of identity, and in course, discover female empowerment.

Laqueus (detail), Crochet cotton, 150 x 40 x 20cm, 2010, NFS

Cherelyn was born in Melbourne in 1983 and is a post-graduate student at Monash University undertaking a Federal Government Research Training Scheme position within the Faculty of Art and Design, having graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne) with Honours in 2004. In 2008, she was selected in the exhibition, Making Sense at Craft Victoria and finalist in the exhibition ArtWear 2006: Adorn exhibition which showcased finalists from around Australia. She has exhibited widely including exhibitions in Melbourne, Berlin and New York, and recently at Bus Projects, Blindside, George Paton Gallery (University of Melbourne), Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition and for the Baldessin Travelling Scholarship, Monash University. She has completed commissions for Melbourne Fringe Festival and Moreland City Council and is represented in private collections in Melbourne and London. Later this year Cherelyn will present to the Irigaray Circle Conference at the Barlett School of Architecture London on her practice.

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Carlisle

Hard, She So Is Knead-able eraser, PVA, sculpey glaze, wood, dimensions variable, 2010, $125

Efferin is in a dream right now, maybe you should leave her alone. She’s right in it; feet, belly, feet...don’t wake her, or else she’ll only have paws and a tail, what good would that be?

Just, let her, sleep…

Carlisle is an aspiring artist/hoarder based in Melbourne. Born in 1990, she fancies she came into the world with a 4B graphite pencil in hand, but it would be slightly more correct to say she’s been drawing incessantly since kindergarten, continuing from that point to include art subjects throughout all her schooling. With an almost obsessive penchant for pretty girls and strange creatures, Carlisle’s drawings, paintings and sculptures all aim to bring out what she refers to as ‘gentle emotions’, with a focus on nature, lines, intimate scales, soft colours and textures. Carlisle is currently studying Diploma of Visual Arts at RMIT, likes fake moustaches and a good pair of pants.

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Katrina Carter

Metamorphic Tableau, Mixed media, 25 x 60 x 50cm, 2010, $950

My art focuses

on the re-use and manipulation of

commonly discarded objects. With this work I have taken empty discarded toothpaste tubes and elevated them to another life.

Through manipulation I have made them resemble precious bronze sculptures. While assembling a large group I became aware of an unexpected subtle silent connection between the individual figures and was impressed with what appeared to be unique personalities. I considered the possibility of identifying the users personality by the manner of their squeezing.

Katrina studied at Shillitos’ School for Colour and Design in Sydney completing a Diploma and then working in the design industry. Since moving to Melbourne has studied firstly at CAE and then at Latrobe College of Art and exhibited her work. This year she is working as Artist in Residence at Melbourne Girls Grammar School.

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Vladimir Chirokov When I take a piece of wood in my hands I feel its spirit and energy, wood is a living and warm material to me. Embodying my ideas in wood means giving a second life to a tree.

This is my way of self-expressing. For nearly 30 years I cannot betray this wonderful material. All these years have been an exciting and continuing process of learning; I always discover new secrets and methods of working with wood. I continue to discover the peculiarities and ‘behavioural patterns’ of different types of timber.

In Russia, my home country, wood has been considered to be the holy material since ancient times because it provided heat, food and clothes. My ancestors, grandfather and father, were highly skilled craftsmen and worked as furniture makers, joiners and wood carvers. I guess I have inherited this skill from them.

Horses Wood (black walnut), 96 x 52 x 6cm, 2006, $6300

Vladimir was born in Russia but now resides in Melbourne with his family. He has exhibited in Russia, Japan and New Zealand and has a Bachelor of Fine Arts. He is a member of the Academy of Fine Arts of New Zealand and is a former member of the Academy of Fine Arts of Russia. Vladimir recently won the Tina Wentcher Sculpture Prize at the annual exhibition of Association of Sculptors of Victoria. His wood carvings have been purchased by multiple international customers from government, corporate and private sector.

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Conrad Clark This work was inspired by Blues giant of the 1930’s, Robert Johnson and is part of a series based on great musicians of our times.

Down at the Crossroads Plywood, NSW hardwoods and ebony, 200 x 200 x 200cm, 2009, POA

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Conrad was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in England in 1941. He started life as a painter studying at the Slade School, London before being awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to India where he completed further studies in stone carving, imagery, human dramas and architecture. He returned to London where he took up woodcarving and became a Design & Technology teacher in furniture design.

He travelled to Athens in Greece further pursuing his interests in stone carving, architecture and theatre before emigrating to Sydney, Australia and the Blue Mountains exploring landscape painting, furniture and garden design, with several collaborations in landscape architecture projects. He re-located to Melbourne to further his options, graduating in July this year from studies in Art in Public Space at RMIT. His table designs have been featured at the Fringe Furniture Festival and he has worked with the Salvation Army teaching a Hebel stone-carving program for refugees and asylum seekers. More of his works can be viewed at www.conradclark.com.au.

Betty Collier By todays standards ‘maternal’ is a word often associated with being buxom or overweight; not an image that many women would aspire to! In past times though, this was symbolic of fertility, which was synonymous with survival. This is the reason why my woman has a primitive appearance. Although she is far more refined than the ‘Venus of Willendorf’, she still embodies fertility and survival and can still be found in our midst. My themes relate to nature and the human condition, this carries through to the natural media that I sculpt with, such as huon pine, limestone, alabaster, pilbara jade and zebra stone. I seek to make sculpture that is timeless, durable, and with a visual and spiritual harmony.

The Maternal One Alabaster on granite, 33 x 44 x 34cm, 2009, $875

Betty’s background has been in teaching art, first at Ballarat East High School and then after having two children, at tertiary institutions including University of Ballarat for over thirty-five years. A serious study of sculpture and painting developed in her mid thirties and was reinforced after travelling to Europe on study leave in 1982 and again in 2002.

She retired in 2005 and has since travelled to Canada, New Zealand and around Australia, studying Contemporary and Indigenous Art, further inspiring her sculpture journey. She was awarded First Prize at the Association of Sculptors of Victoria Inc, Annual Exhibition 2009 and The Contemporary Art Society of Victoria Inc. Annual Exhibition 2007, and this year received an Honourable Mention at the International Flower & Garden Show. Betty continues to teach art privately.

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Julie Collins & Derek John As the world experiences what seems to be an increase in natural disasters, should we begin to ask, is it natural or indeed unnatural?

Extreme heat, unsettled earth, floods, rising waters and depleted food resources point more and more to Unnatural Disaster (marquette shown) Steel, wax, string and resin, 300 x 300 x 300cm, 2010 $27,500 bronze cast map POA

an uneasy series of coincidence. As we grapple, or perhaps

Julie completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Victoria College, Prahran in 1987 and her Masters of Arts at University Ballarat in 2008. In 1997 she was a founding member and Chairperson of the Contemporary Sculptors Association Inc (CSA), an artist run organisation that developed and still manages Yarra Sculpture Gallery in Abbotsford. She has exhibited regularly since 1987 and has been a curator, lecturer, studio coordinator, writer and government advisor in public art development and urban design, across many projects. Julie and Derek have been collaborating on sculptural projects since 2001, with Derek coming from a trade background being a qualified boilermaker and steel fabricator. His great technical skill and engineering know how works perfectly with Julie’s concepts of contrasting the natural with the built environment. Between them they have exhibited in over 125 exhibitions and are part of many collections within Australia and overseas. In 2009 they received the Toyota Community Spirit Artist Travel Award for a residency and series of exhibitions in CorkIreland. www.djprojects.net

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fail to grapple with global warming and climate change, we must ask, are these the signs we have been waiting for? And if so what are we going to do about it?

Tim Craker Represented by Jackman Gallery

Tim is a painter, sculptor and installation-artist living in Seddon in Melbourne’s inner-western suburbs. Following an Honours Degree in Fine Art from RMIT (graduating in 1993) he has exhibited widely in Melbourne in both group and solo shows.

His earlier works were based on the meaning and appearance of language and text. An artist’s residency in Malaysia in 2006 saw a significant change in direction, in both subject matter and materials. The residency led directly to the exhibition dot-netdot-my in Melbourne in 2007, and to a touring exhibition dot-netdot-au in Malaysia and Singapore in 2008 with Melbourne artist Louise Saxton. A solo exhibition of his works was shown at Jackman Gallery in St Kilda this year and his works can be viewed at www. timcraker.com

Cloud Net (detail, work in progress) Plastic straws, nylon monofilament, 500 x 500cm approximately, 2010, $3300

Cloud Net is the result of “play” in the studio, responding to plastic drinking straws as a material from which to make work. The straws are lightweight, cheap, and available in bulk, and lend themselves by their form to being threaded and joined together. Cut into sections, and assembled randomly – in terms of differences in length - although to a distinct pattern, the straws assumed a changeable form at once strangely organic and geometric. The title of the work alludes to both the appearance and the function of the work – is it a net which looks like a cloud (or the computer design for one), or one designed to catch them? Or indeed, is it something else altogether?

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Jim Curry My diverse background and skills have enabled me to work creatively in several mediums including bronze, clay, metal, wood and copper. The work is as varied in direction as the creative lens through which I view the Australia diorama, reflecting my love for native animals and plants and providing a whimsical and sometimes humorous take on the country environment where I live.

Harmonic Organic Mixed Media, 160 x 130 x 130cm, 2009 POA

Jim was born in 1952 and raised and educated in Mildura. In 1969 he began his working life as a plumber, acquiring skills that would prove to be to be a solid foundation for his future career. He travelled and worked in automotive design before a chance commission to create a fountain launched his artistic journey. He has received public commissions commencing in the early 1980’s including the Royal Childrens Hospital (2006) and War Memorial Sculptures in Mildura (2007 & 2009).

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Dalia

Word Power and the Human Condition no. 13 Mixed Media, 210 x 260 x 120cm, 2007 $3000

Via poetry I am concerned with the nature of identity and the human condition.

Deconstructed fragments of poetic text appear in this work which is a direct visual response to poetry and its word power, communicatively, one of our most effective tools. I have used Braille to articulate an initial blindness we may have to meaning and interpretation of poetic thought.

Dalia completed her tertiary education in Fine Art at RMIT then followed with a Masters degree at Monash. She has always worked in the visual arts in the fields of sculpture, painting and performance art. Her particular interest is in the human condition and the cultural dichotomies experienced by migrants. She has staged exhibitions, performances and events both in Australia and overseas, where her work is held in public and private collections.

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Andrei Davidoff My work explores the relationship and tension between the creative process, nature and the manmade.

Clay is an ideal medium for this discourse because of its millennia long history and elemental nature.

Using a combination of porcelain, fluorescent lights and other media, Denkyu (Japanese – light bulb) Forest introduces the audience to an environment in which disparate media are unified.

Much like a thriving garden in the midst of a city, the relationships built up in the work reflect the interaction between the mass produced and industrial, with the handmade and unique. This Andrei studied as a chemical engineer in Sydney before deciding art was his calling in his final year. A serendipitous trip to the Snowy Mountains saw him cut his teeth throwing pots under the instruction of Fr. Sergei Shatrov of the Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Bombala. Ceramic art and pottery have a foot firmly in both contemporary art and functional ware and his practice seeks to explore the possibilities. Whilst Andrei is set to graduate from RMIT Fine Arts this year, his work is already held in several public and private collections as well as having been selected for the 2010 triennial ICMEA Emerging Artist Competition held in Fuping, China.

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creates a strange and eccentric beauty, which while not completely alien, still retains dark, untrustworthy and distorted undertones.

Denkyu Forest (detail) Translucent porcelain and mixed media, dimensions variable, 2010, $2800

Rehgan De Mather Represented by Cowwarr Art Space

Evolve, Acrylic, wooden Matryoshka dolls and letra-set on canvas, 30 x 30 x 30cm, 2008, $1300

Much like a musical sample or patchwork fabric, I reuse and recycle previous works and canvas, cutting them up and casting them amongst new landscapes. I refer to these as “contemporary leftovers�, a collection of disjointed stories, themes and ideas sewn together across time and space. This process is as much about building a personal iconography as it is putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Driven by a desire to create, construct and connect; collage and assemblage allow me join the dots between past work and new ideas.

Rehgan was born in Adelaide, grew up in Sale and currently lives and works in Melbourne. Since completing his Bachelor of Visual Art at Monash University Gippsland in 2001, Rehgan has held seventeen solo exhibitions and been involved in over thirty group exhibitions throughout Australia. He has been selected as a finalist twice in the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, Sunshine Coast Art Prize, John Leslie Art Prize and Arc Yinnar Drawing Prize, as well as being a finalist in the Prometheus Art Award, Araluen Art Prize, City of Whyalla Art Prize, Agendo Art Award, Black Swan Prize for Portraiture and Stanthorpe Arts Festival. He was a semi-finalist in the arts category of the Young Australian of the Year Awards and was also a recipient of a Regional Arts Development Grant through Arts Victoria.

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Rebecca Delange

Wild at Heart Wax, plasticine, fur, hair, chain, sequins and pins 18 x 10 x 10cm, 2010, $800

Rebecca lives and works in Melbourne. In 2008 she completed Honours in Fine Art at the VCA has exhibited in a number of group and solo exhibitions at Trocadero Gallery, Off the Kerb Gallery and Platform Artist Space. In 2009 she was awarded the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship for Sculpture, which has allowed her to travel extensively through Europe and participate in a number of artist residencies, including Polymer Kulture Haus in Tallinn, Estonia and Takt AIR in Berlin for three months in 2010. Rebecca has recently been awarded at $10,000 Australia Council Art Start Grant and will be travelling to New York in July to participate in the Watermill Centre’s Summer Program and will be creating an installation work there which she has been commissioned to construct.

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My practice is

multi-disciplinary, expanding from drawing and photography into painting, performance, sculpture and installation.

I aim to make tangible in sculptural assemblages and spatial interventions things such as dreams, ideas and subconscious manifestations. Central to my practice is an investigation into processes of production that can embody and physically articulate these things without just merely representing them. I strive to achieve this by creating tension between different colours, materials, forms, processes and ideas. The work is structured around an investigation into manipulating and transforming materials and experimenting with actions and processes to articulate these ideas; a dialogue between controlled making and uncontrolled action. I see the work as continuous project that exists in a state of flux never finding a permanently still place of rest or definitive answer and resolution.

Sean Diamond Sponsored by Norstar Steel Recyclers

Dragon (detail), Welded recycled steel, 2400 x 2400 x 14000cm, 2010, POA

Myths, legends, truth or a mix of all?

Dragons capture the imagination and propose intriguing possibilities about

Sean remodels waste light and steel exploring new shapes with emotional energy.

energy that does not have space in our modern world...or does it?

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Melanie Fitzmaurice Represented by Catherine Asquith Gallery

These sculptures were

Explorer’s Case Tracksuit fleece, fibreglass, wood and ribbing, 72x80x70cm, 2010, $2800 Photographed by Garry Smith

initially conceived during an artist’s residency in the coastal town of Arbroath, Scotland in 2008 and has been developed over the past two years. It comprises sculptures where explorer’s equipment is fused with domestic objects and fragments of the human body.

Merging the intimate indoor with the utilitarian outdoor, the work depicts a bridging of an external world of objects with the internal mind. The sculptures are unified in grey tracksuit fleece. The nature of this consistent grey surface works to create an immersive and introspective environment where function and psychology intercept.

The sculptures simultaneously describe the ordinary and the surreal, distance and proximity, orientation and disorientation, drawing connections between geographical and emotional expeditions.

Left: Explorer’s Pillow, Tracksuit fleece and ribbing, wadding, interfacing, wire, fibreglass and card, 30x45x60cm approx 2009, $2000 Right: Explorer’s Trekking Poles, Tracksuit fleece, wood, fibreglass, rubber, plastic and steel, 100x60x60cm approx, 2010, $1000 Both images photographed by Damien Geary

Melanie was born in 1985 in Melbourne. She completed her Bachelor of Arts (Visual) with Honours in the Sculpture Workshop at the Australian National University, School of Art in Canberra in 2007. Since her graduation she has exhibited in Melbourne, Canberra and London. In 2008 she was a recipient of a Royal Overseas League Visual Arts Travel Scholarship and Residency at Hospitalfield House in Arbroath in Scotland.

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Avis Gardner My work is fundamentally Earth

based and the materials I choose to work with are predominantly clay and precious metals. The alchemical processes required for both being the key to my affinity with them. There is always that random element beyond my control that determines the end result; rather like life itself.

Gifts of Transition There are many times in our lives when we experience times of transition… these can be from events which alter our circumstances and also by our natural progression through life ... involving a symbolic death of our old selves, allowing the new to enter. The giving of Gifts at this time is especially important to ease and safeguard the transition into our “new life”.

“To make visible the giving up we do invisibly.” Lewis Hyde Not only are the gifts themselves significant but so too is the spirit in which they are given. This piece is expressive of the positive power of love during times of transition.

Gift of Love Porcelain with earth oxides, glaze and silver onlay 38 x 23 x 23cm, 2010 $275

Avis’ inherent passion for drawing and painting led to Art College where her interests extended into other medias. After her training she lived in London, exhibiting and selling her work through various shops and galleries. She eventually moved to Devon, England and became a free-lance designer and illustrator, working in various mediums. This involved a diverse range of work from book illustration, kitchen product design and designing for several ceramic companies.

She also developed her own range of Memorial Ware, which was taken up by the Co-Op Funeral Directors. In December 2007, she relocated to Melbourne. Having been fully established in the UK the transition here has been quite a challenge with limited space and facilities. Moving to her own home in 2009 has enabled her to have a workshop and kiln once again and she is now expanding her range of jewellery, small sculptures and urns for ashes.

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Mandy Gunn Mandy trained at Monash University and the Victorian College of the Arts where she completed her Masters of Fine Arts in 2000. Her sculpture, installation and assemblage work has been exhibited widely in private and public galleries around Australia, the Philippines and recently in the International Tapestry Triennial, Lodz, Poland.

Her work is held in many public collections and she has been the recipient of a number of prizes, grants and residencies. She lives and works in the pristine environment of South Gippsland, on a sanctuary registered property, currently undergoing a revegetation programme.

Inside the Old Curiosity Shop Shredded and woven book, 40 x 40 x 14cm, 2010 $850

I work predominately with found and discarded materials, usually hand cut and reassembled often using textile linked techniques. The work reflects current issues relating to waste, consumption and climate change. This work is one of a continuing series investigating links between TEXT and TEXTILES. The book pages have been hand cut and woven on a handloom, the resulting scroll like shape being similar to ancient methods of transmitting information.

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Robert Hague Familiar to many sculptors, the lump-hammer is a brute, with a long and chequered history. They were used to carve the marble of the Parthenon, and then again to deface it. Often used as a symbol for honest labour, they are the quintessential tool. The Trojan Hammer series presents itself as a sometimes serious, sometimes humorous look at technology and it’s implications.

IMAGE ABOVE: Trojan Hammer (Cloth) Carrara marble, 6x40.5x15cm 2010 $5500 IMAGE RIGHT: Trojan Hammer (200%) Bronze & 24ct gold 39.5x13.5x13.5cm, 2010 $5500 IMAGE LEFT: Trojan Hammer (Femur) Bronze & 24ct gold, 42x13.5x7cm, 2009 $5500

Robert is a full time sculptor based in Melbourne’s west, who recently returned from fourteen years in Sydney. Born in Rotorua, New Zealand in 1967, he arrived in Australia in 1985. He has presented in forty-five group and solo exhibitions and has commissioned works in Australia, China and USA. In 1999, he was awarded the Director’s Prize at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi. He is currently represented by Tim Olsen Gallery Sydney, The Arthouse Christchurch NZ and Australian Art Resources Melbourne.

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Craig Haire

The Cloudgatherer (detail) Resin, fibreglass and timber. 90 x 45 x 85cm, 2010 $4000

Craig has been a sculptor all his life, first exhibiting in the Mildura Sculpture Triennial in 1967. His credits include a solo exhibition at Roar Studio in 1983 and commissions/ collections include the Mildura Cultural Centre, Catholic Hospice at the City of Knox and the Springvale Medical Centre. Craig has taught both at secondary and tertiary level and for several years honed his technical skills in the two major sculpture foundries in Melbourne. Since 1990 he has worked as a fine artist and commercial sculptor and specialist props maker for film and theatre.

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Zeus was the supreme god

and ruler of Olympus which is where the 12 gods of ancient Greece resided, entertaining themselves by meddling in the affairs of mortals.

They were not all wise and godlike in their behaviour (especially compared with the Abrahamic God): they were very human in their faults. Zeus was given several names – the cloud gatherer; lord of the sky; the rain god and the thunderer – all of which show how very important the weather (rain in particular) was to the Greeks in their hot, dry land. Rain is the life giving force – everywhere. I developed my “cloud gatherer” image in 1983, sculpting several small bronzes unaware of the mythology. I was aware of the visual tension/contradiction of the subject, the sense of futility in the act of the gesture – the symbolism around man struggling against nature, or attempting to harness it, or his perception of his strength in relation to the natural world.

But most importantly it reflected my sadness and disappointment in and about Us; and how We relate to Us; and our planet. I am now able to see the image as a positive one – the relationship continues to be a struggle but I believe we are beginning to realise we can’t dominate nature, but rather We have to save Us – no point in asking Zeus!

Lucie Hallenstein Lucie is an emerging artist who recently completed her BA Fine Art at RMIT University.

She uses geometrics and repetition in her work to make drawings, sculptures, prints and installations. She is inspired by minimalist sculpture and artists such as Donald Judd, Richard Serra, Carl Andre, Dan Graham, Andrea Zittel and Lucy Orta. She was awarded the Siemens RMIT Fine Art Undergraduate Travel Scholarship.

Headspace, Paper and glue, 150 x 150 x 100cm, 2010, $450

I am interested in creating shelters

from the world in which we live.

As life gets more hectic we have less time to wind down and just be. I am interested in exploring this idea of relaxation and escape, and its relevance to contemporary society worldwide. In contemporary Australian society, time is valued as a commodity to be converted into a profit. Doing nothing and being still is viewed as a “waste of time.” I view my shelters as physical escapes: spaces that can be used to be still, breathe and collect thoughts.Just as children make cubby houses as a way of escaping the world they live in, adults too need space to concentrate on the inner or imagined world. In my concept of shelter, the space I have created gives temporary protection from the world, worries, problems, decisions and other people. It is a place designed to hide in and reflect, forget and be still. In this era of “time is money,” my spaces explore the concept of using time, self-reflection and relaxation.

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Peter Hannaford

Where to Now Timber and metal, 59 x 70 x 21cm, 2008, $850

Peter was born in New South Wales in 1945 and became interested in art while in the navy, completing a correspondence course in drawing. After ten years of pursuing self-taught practice, he eventually completed a Diploma of Visual Arts and Graduate Diploma in 1980. He has continued his practice in various ways since that time, through exhibitions and also through his involvement in humanitarian causes and left wing politics in the production of banners, posters, leaflets and placards.

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This work is about taking

an interest in, and acting upon the many complex issues that confront society. How to negotiate the barriers of self-interest and intransigence?

Ashlee Hope Ashlee was born in 1986 in Gippsland and is currently living in Northcote, Victoria. After completing a Certificate IV Contemporary Art at Chisholm, Dandenong, she completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Photo media) at Monash University in 2009.

She has exhibited in various group shows around Melbourne and in Launceston and her first solo show was held in June at Off the Kerb, Collingwood. More of her work can be viewed at ashleehopeart.com

The dizzying pirouette of wants and commodities Ceramic tea cups, dimensions variable, 2010, POA

The main focuses

of my artistic practice are the exploration into natural and constructed environments, its commodification and the consumption of objects.

My current work examines the sometimes-uneasy interaction between the natural and built environments, the real and the artificial and our perception of it.

Investigating the often-mediated experience of the natural world I directly respond to humans use and representation of nature and animals and also the consumption and commodification of animals and their habitats. Working between video, sculpture, painting, photo media and craft, I am currently using second hand objects and materials to create, exploring how the material somewhat controls the work, especially when imbued with the history of being a pre-loved object.

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Nick Ilton

Everywhere you go CCTV cameras are looking down on you from somewhere. But who’s watching the cameras?

These cameras are rendered safe from vandalism by their focus on each other, so they can continue to keep the streets safe. But they can only do one or the other. They can guarantee their own safety but not that of their surrounds, if they point to their environment they become vulnerable. Like a corrupt government or police force, someone has to watch the watchers.

What are you looking at?

Mild steel, 480 x 500 x 90cm, 2010, $3500

I’ve been building and installing other people’s art for around 15 years now, and at the beginning of last year it became apparent to me that I should build and install some of my own stuff. Most of my work is slightly subversive in nature and guerrilla in installation, and sometimes the work or the outcome makes it from the street to the gallery. I also make small kinetic sculptures which often take the form of drawing machines. I work as a builder in theatre and visual arts and this has given me the knowledge and equipment to realise my own artistic visions, which often deal with our willingness to take things for granted, whether those things be what we hear on the news, see in the streets or read in the papers.

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Giovanna Inserra

My practice

is mainly

installation based exploring the human elements within architecture and domestic objects.

Pegged (detail) Polystyrene, poly urethane,stainless steel, 60 x 180 x 180cm, 2010 $2500

Giovanna completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honors) at RMIT in 1999. Her artwork has been collected by The Authur Seat Maze and has also been exhibited with Arts Victoria and various other galleries and public spaces around Hobsons Bay and Melbourne.

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Rudi Jass

Represented by Australian Art Resources

My preferred medium is stainless steel and corten steel, often in combination with stone and glass.

Currently I am working on kinetic wind sculptures. I am fascinated by the fact that the interaction of nature (wind) with the organic shapes of the sculpture makes it complete.

German born Rudi, came to Australia in 1983. He also lived in Canada and Papua New Guinea and has been working as a full time sculptor since 1990.

Some of his corporate clients have been Emirates Airlines, Lend Lease and AV Jennings. His work is represented in many private collections in Australia, Japan, Singapore, UK and the US. He has received several awards at exhibitions including the Dame Elizabeth Murdoch award at the Contemporary Sculpture Exhibitions Annual Awards 2006. Rudi is represented by Australian Art Resources.

Silver Leaves Stainless and corten steel, 280 x 120 x 160cm, 2010 $6400

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Gaby Jung

The Last Catch, Mixed media, 100 x 100 x 200cm, 2010, POA

The Last Catch or What price oil dependency? depicts a fish made from reclaimed plastic soy sauce fish caught in a trawl net made from reclaimed plastic rings. Reclaimed plastic materials represent our oil-hungry short sightedness for “cheap� fuel and throw away plastic. The Last Catch refers to the latest Deep-Horizon oil-disaster, which is destroying the lives of thousands (millions?) of marine animals and organisms, coastal vegetation and animal life as well as the livelihoods of local fishermen and recreational areas. Is it really worth it?

Gaby was born in Berlin, Germany, emigrating to Australia in 1979 and eventually settling in Melbourne in 1986. She started as a self-taught sculptor working mainly in stone in 2002. Since then she has exhibited in over twenty group exhibitions including Toorak Sculpture Festival and Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition, where she was awarded third prize and won the Peoples Choice award. Her works are in private collections in Germany and Australia.

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Hanif Khairi Transmutation refers to my

Transmutation Recycled plastic and recycled wood, 100 x 43 x 43cm, 2010 $3500

reconstruction of natural elements in nature through a process of distorting, modifying, simplifying, and transformation.

In this way, I try to obliquely re-imagine traditional values and aesthetic tastes in making sculpture that would illustrate the harmonious factor of consumerism, materials, nature, and culture. I intend to question why and how sustainable-related art practices can be incorporated to produce sustainable and meaningful art forms in the studio, and discuss the implications of this way of creating artworks. By making this sculpture, my aim is to explore the possibilities of discarded materials to be transformed into works of art, by implementing the up-cycle approach. In creating this sculpture, I have collected and gathered refused objects and reprocessed them into something else. When I reprocessed them, nearly all their physical characteristics were changed. I hope viewers cannot tell or recognise the original state of those materials which once used to be rubbish. I am not only doing immense alterations, but also a total transmutation.

Hanif was born in Malaysia and is currently a PhD candidate in Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University, studying in the Sculpture studio and sponsored by the Malaysian government. His passion and love for using plastic as a medium in creating art began in 1998 during his commencement in the MA program. Between 2003 and 2007 his direction slightly changed, his intention and style moving more towards sustainable design using recycled plastic.

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Marco Luccio

Barracuda, Plastic, wood, metal and brush, 45 x 105 x 9cm, 2009, $1895

Marco is an award winning Melbourne based artist whose work is represented in over 30 major public collections both nationally and internationally. Born 1969 in Benevento, Italy, Marco moved to Australia in 1974, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Art, Honours Degree with High Distinction in Printmaking from RMIT, Melbourne in 1992. He has exhibited 28 major solo exhibitions and over 130 group and award shows and received several commissions. His work is held in various private, public and corporate collections including The New York Public Library, The Museum of the City of New York, The New York Historical Society and The National Gallery of Australia. He is a recipient of the Waverly Print Award and was shortlisted for the 2009 Dobell prize for drawing. He has completed residencies and study travel trips in New York, Paris and Italy and given many guest lectures throughout Australia and overseas, including the Art Students League of New York and the Print Council of New Jersey. In March 2010 he was invited to exhibit International Cities at the Australian Consulate General in New York and is well known for creating monumental prints born out his preoccupation with the ever changing and evolving urban environment.

In Italian,

Luccio is a type of fish.

This piece was made from remnants of the wheel itself. To me these fragments and artefacts represent civilisation as much as my images of cityscapes do. While the Southern Star Observation Wheel at Victoria Harbour was being constructed I spent 18 months drawing directly on site. Whilst there, I began collecting the detritus from the junk yard set up on the site where piles and piles of wonderful shapes, colours and textures lay strewn for me to discover. I used a wheelbarrow to tow the bits from the site to my car. My studio was full of amazing fragments from this colossal construction.

Each piece meant so much to me and seemed filled with significance greater than its commercial value would indicate. I would see a fish eye in one pile of dirt, a tail stuck under a rock and a fish torso in a pile of wood. Everything started to form pictures.

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Craig MacDonald Searching for Another Amazon,

the first in the Enlightenment series, depicts a group of astronauts climbing a barren landscape in a futile search for the next Amazon. Spacemen symbolically stand for the eternal quest for new horizons – as do most so called explorers, here however the quest is not for exploration but for exploitation. These anonymous explorers swarm over the mountain looking for another place to set up shop – taking with them the usual throw away items of exploration –axes, lawnmowers, weapons … The underlying intention is to heighten our awareness of the ongoing conflict in our search for answers whilst overlooking the obvious at our feet.

Searching for Another Amazon (detail) Bronze and steel 240 x 130 x 120cm, 2007, $18,400

Born in New Zealand 1958, Craig grew up in the country on the slopes of Mount Taranaki . After formal training at the Elam School of Fine art in Auckland New Zealand he began working in the studio of acclaimed New Zealand sculptor Paul Dibble – where he discovered a passion for the medium of bronze casting. In the early nineties he relocated his family to central Victoria where he established the Garage Art Foundry to enable a lifestyle whereby he could live the life of a practising artist while casting the works of fellow artists. After fifteen years of predominantly casting for other artists, he is more inclined to leave the phone off the hook and spend more time in the studio himself.

Ham -Spacechimp Bronze, 34x20x10cm, 2009, $3200

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Icarus Bronze,33x16x8cm, 2009, $2400

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Maralinga Test Dummy Bronze, 54x38x24cm, 2009, $5200

Angela Macdougall Represented by Brenda May Gallery

Reconstructing Eve

shows a

standing woman in a thoughtful pose.

The idea originates from the biblical story of God taking one of Adam’s ribs to create Eve, however, the intention here is not to be a religious piece. The woman appears preoccupied. She is holding a rib.

There is ambiguity in her actions – is she placing her rib or is she removing it? What is clearer is the shedding of layers to reveal her inner-self. The female figure depicts any woman from any generation.

The layers to be applied or removed lie around her and the viewer can decide which is taking place but the outcome is the same, there is a transformation in the reconstruction.

Reconstructing Eve Re-enforced concrete, paint, steel and sheet metal 167 x 182 x 148cm, 2010, $4200

Angela completed a Bachelor of Arts in Sculpture at RMIT and returned several years later to complete Honours. Since finishing art school she has exhibited regularly in solo and group exhibitions. Her travels through Asia, Japan and India have been influential to her figurative work which has varied in size and medium over the fifteen years. For Angela, this is part of the enjoyment and fulfilment of being an artist/sculptor, working in clay one day to then constructing in sheet metal or finishing a cast metal piece the next. Recently she has also enjoyed the challenge of producing large scale outdoor sculptures for commissions and exhibitions, such as 2009 Sculpture by the Sea and The Melbourne Flower and Garden Show.

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David Marshall Keepin up with the Joneses is killing me. She’s just one more bad habit “

I was too blind to see” * We’ve been whisked up in a pilgrimage to a Temple of Materialism, an endless shopping spree rooted in competitive emulation on a manic scale. The absurdity of it all. Larger and larger houses, cars and televisions only matched by compounding debt, fuelling the inextinguishable fire. *Quote Lyric from Little Feat, Time Loves a Hero 1977

David has worked as a landscape contractor for the past twenty-eight years, specialising in the design and construction of Japanese gardens/interiors. Now semi-retired, he has been developing his ideas and concepts in recent times and is pursuing opportunities in the field of contemporary sculpture. In 2008 he was Highly Commended in the Current Outdoor Sculpture exhibition at Wangaratta and his works have also been shown in the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Toorak Sculpture Exhibition and the Williamstown Festival Contemporary Art Prize.

Feathering the Nest (detail) Wire, basalt and celery top pine, 260 x 80 x 80cm, 2010 $4200

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Sheena Mathieson My work is about form, repetition, surface and space. I create preserved worlds which encompass the tree and suggest an intimate dialogue between the natural and the manmade. Drawing inspiration from my surroundings, wooden off-cuts from local furniture manufacturers and building sites have been selected for their strength, hue and shape. Using a variety of techniques including burning, burnishing and erasure, the shapes have undergone a process of transformation. Moving between the figurative and the abstract, I aim to unite: light and dark; space; reason and imagination; the everyday and the remarkable, the “man”-made hard edged repetition of the built environment versus the more fluid organic natural form. The observer may explore the work – come close and investigate the surfaces and the spatial arrangements, and contemplate our interaction with and dependence on our environment.

Art Brulé Wood and gesso, 111 x 50 x 29cm, 2010, $1500

Sheena completed a Diploma of Visual Art at Box Hill Institute in 2005 and has exhibited in over twenty exhibitions with eleven solo shows, including the Stephen McLaughlan Gallery in 2009 and CARBON BLACK gallery in 2010.

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Janice McCarthy

Mars Landscape, Found objects on MDF, 90 x 120 x 4cm, 2009, $785

I became a sculptor unintentionally - a result of the unexpected sale of my first piece, which I produced for my recently renovated living room wall. The search for interesting used objects has continued beyond the process of creating its replacement. These, along with unsolicited contributions have added to my collection, and continue to provide unlimited opportunity to put them to good use. I use a variety of materials which include various found objects such as scrap metal, bamboo, cork, plastic and timber.

Janice has exhibited this year at the Herring Island Exhibition and the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show Sculpture Exhibition.

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Carrie McGrath

It’s knot me it’s you (detail) Mixed media, variable dimensions, 2010, POA

Carrie completed her Bachelor of Fine Art - Sculpture in 2005, having spent some of her third year in Mexico on a student exchange program. Since then she has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions around Melbourne. Usually her work is of a large scale, within the form of abstract installations, but she has recently introduced performance elements into her practice.

She has been exploring this direct response to the viewer and is interested in how the space is activated and narratives arise.

She also works as a freelance artist in film and theatre in the art/wardrobe departments and production design.

Studies of endurance between the artist, materials, and the viewer.

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Sally Miller The creation and collection of iconic figures has long been practiced by humans and would appear to be deep-set in the human psyche. The figures more often created in various versions of the human form may have either spiritual or secular importance for the creator and or those who choose to keep the figures. With this figure I seek to identify the iconic elements that represent the everyday person, in this case a woman who may be a friend, mother, sister or partner.

An iconic status is often only bestowed upon an individual Totem Woman, Mixed media, 176 x 112 x 70cm, 2006, $3500

after life has left that person.

Why do we in this society have

Sally’s work addresses concerns of a private nature along with more topical issues, seeking to explore and understand the way society and individuals perceive themselves. Often this involves reflection on social systems and values apart from that of the white, western society that has informed her own life. Her work encompasses a range of mediums including printmaking, photography, sound installation and sculpture.

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so few ways to acknowledge this status? Here the figure represents a rite of passage after death.

Lenni Morkel-Kingsbury

Esto Perpetua (once upon a time stood still) Collected and altered chair, history book and white thread, 66 x 46 x 102cm approx, 2009, $800

It begins with restlessness, a symptomatic yearning to seek, gather and recollect obscured and sometimes hallucinatory memories and displaced (hi)stories.

My art making process is a conduit for the performance of memory: psychological transition; re-construction and re-affirmation of self. The resulting art objects are ironic reminders of febrile attempts to counteract the side effect of time, of forgetting.

Lenni is an artist, writer and educator. She has: exhibited in Melbourne and Victoria; participated in the management of local ARIs including Blindside and Brunswick Arts Space; worked as a studio assistant for an international artist; and currently teaches Art Theory and Visual Culture at Monash University. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours degree at Monash University in 2007. She is currently undertaking a Master of Arts, at Monash University, researching the performative qualities of memory and its assertion in contemporary installation art. Lenni also has over ten years experience in project management in the education and health industries in Australia and the USA.

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Tracy Muirhead

Barbara and Henry, Black and White Stoneware, 20 x 60 x 10cm, 2010, $300

Tracy was born in South Africa and received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Cape Town in 1984. She worked as a fashion buyer for twelve years before immigrating to Australia with her husband and son in 1998. Her focus for the past twelve years has been raising a family and has undertaken part-time studies in ceramics at Box Hill TAFE from 2007 to present.

I am particularly interested in primitive art and find that clay is a medium that allows for diversity in form, texture and colour. I enjoy experimenting with the textures of the unglazed clay and the process of black firing is central to my current work.

Above all, the element of play and accidental discovery is what makes working with clay so rewarding.

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Mike Nicholls

My work is a response

of

my feelings to the machinations of civilized man, drawing on primitive art to express these themes. While this piece draws its essence from primitive art, the subject matter comes from the subconscious, being a mask to view the uncertainty of the of the world, whilst the figure acts as a guardian spirit.

Mike has exhibited works across Australia and internationally and for the past twenty-five years he has developed a personal language drawing on references from primitive cultures and developing his own personal iconography to explore the tribal commonalities that exist in society today.

Watching over me Lemon Scented Gum, 210 x 43 x 43cm, 2010 $15,000

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Gael O’Leary

Windswept Bronze, 24 x 45 x 15cm, 2009 $3300

Gael’s extensive artistic career began as a teacher, painter and printmaker. Sculpture though, has proved her true calling and her work over the past three decades has been predominantly in bronze and includes many large commissioned works in various localities in New Zealand, Australia and the USA. They are in schools, churches, hospitals and public spaces and reflect themes of growth, spirituality and social justice. A recurring element in her work is her fascination with trees and all that they symbolize – growth and deterioration, hope and resurrection, engaging emotional responses and connecting with the human need for relationship and for hope.

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This is one of the sculptures in the Gale Force Series. The sculpture explores the notion of how opposing forces interact, influence and counter each other. The image of figures bracing themselves against the wind is a powerful symbol of life forces, which can beset us. Support from another can enable us to face these forces, while on other occasions being ‘blown off course’ can be a free and liberating experience, the chance for a new start.

I come from a family of makers, my father was

Mirta Ouro

an ornamental parquetry layer and my mother a dressmaker, so I grew up in an environment where making and creating was play. My ceramic sculpture is homage to nature. Barely a short time after the fires the forest is producing the most delicate regrowth giving a wonderful display of new life and hope.

I translate nature’s resilience, frailty, magnificence and instability; elements competing but balancing at the same time.

I created delicate white forms in porcelaneous stoneware to resemble the beauty of the new shoots in contrast to the blackened, charred wood, which I produced in the kiln.

I take great pleasure in

Regeneration after the Fires (detail) Ceramic and charcoal, 20 x 60 x 40cm, 2010, $350 Photo by Andrew Barcham @ Screaming Pixel

creating my ceramic work and as when I was a child, work still is play and I aspire to translate through it my own feelings of contentment and balance.

Mirta’s art practice started in Argentina but migrating to Australia and the consequent period of adjustment made it difficult to continue.

After a while, she became acquainted to the new country’s customs; settled, worked and formed a family and for several years now has been able to continue developing her skills, refocussing on her career as a ceramicist

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Cristina Palacios

Pachamama’s Poncho, Installation, 850 x 150cm, 2009, NFS

“

After 7 nights of total darkness Pachamama’s pain

and sorrow for not seeing the light turned into tears, flooding her Poncho. ‘Inti ‘(the God Sun) saw her despair and came out of the darkness and kissed her tears. That was the birth of the Rainbow.”

Cristina was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and moved to Australia in 1987. She studied for a Diploma of Visual Arts at the CAE, before going on to complete her Bachelor of Fine Arts with Distinction at RMIT University in 2007. She has participated in over forty group exhibitions since 2003, three solo exhibitions, one overseas and three international shows in Tokyo with the International Bokuga Association. She has realised several commissions and her work is held in private collections in Australia, America, Argentina, Italy, France and Japan.

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Helen Pallikaros

Post partum, first life Steel, wire and pins, 40x23x25cm 2007 NFS

Nest Wire and pins, 12x12x12cm, 2007 $220

Post partum, awakening Wire and pins, 17x17x38cm, 2007 $450

My first series of works are based on personal reflections on the familial

realm, the experiences of “the mother� and the vulnerability inherent in this role. Mothering is about many things - giving, strength, love, and security, but with this responsibility comes guilt. Society places great scrutiny over women in their lives, but especially so when they have a child. The pressure to meet this constructed ideal often brings heartache and unease. A nest is a home, a refuge, a place of calm and security for the offspring, but a dichotomy exists. My sculptures are representations of nests or abstracted forms that are constructed out of man made, unforgiving materials. They represent the daily struggles, the push and pull of domestic life, the stretching and pulling that can make us break, and render us less capable of bouncing back. Yet the trials and stresses can still give rise to something beautiful and unique, something to be admired and treasured.

Helen has just completed a Graduate Certificate in Visual Art at the Faculty of VCA, Melbourne University. She has created art all her life with drawing being her chosen medium, but studying at the VCA has opened her eyes to the broader expression of ideas and she has started to work in 3D with a greater sense of direction and purpose. She is inspired by women artists including Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Bronwyn Oliver and Annette Messager.

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Penny Parkinson I am fascinated with the human condition in our post-industrial age. I have a particular interest in our materialistic, consumerist behaviour, and the way it will evolve in our rapidly changing world. On one hand exciting advancements in technology and science are happening quickly, for example, nanotechnology, bioengineering and robotics.

However changes in our environment are also evident.

We seem reluctant to accept the responsibility to care for the environment, other humans, and our planet. Fascinatingly, humans respond to challenges in a variety of ways; emotionally or logically, quickly or slowly, selfishly or selflessly. My art is a response to the imperfect human spirit in this time of change.

Screen Nylon stocking, soft filling, marking rings and fly screen doors 202 x 135 x 135cm, 2010, $900

Penny was born in Echuca and completed a Bachelor of Art in Industrial Design at RMIT in 1983. She has spent most of her life in various design and technical roles within the clothing industry, but has been developing her practice and interest in art through study at La Trobe College of the Arts and exhibiting in several group shows over the past few years, including a shared exhibition with Romany Glover at Counihan Gallery earlier this year.

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Jason Patten This piece is an expression

of the

transcendent connection of the Individual to the Collective Consciousness- a revelation of Inner Light‌ My practice involves the researching of the modern theories of quantum physics and perception, in addition to Humanity’s amazing variety of mystical heritages, to create expressions of the meeting points between the two worlds of thought and experience

Jason is a sculptor and painter with a twenty-year practice in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. His experience has involved design and construction of large art works for events, paintings and props for theatrical productions, and commissioned costuming in latex for performance artists and enthusiasts, having recently exhibited a latex-based costume in Europe for the Asian Body Art Festival. He is now based in Melbourne, having recently relocated here from Perth, WA.

Key of the Galactic Human (work in progress) Tinted resin, acrylic paint, gold leaf, optic fibre 175 x 60 x 15cm, 2010 $2010

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Louis Patterson The Black Saturday bushfires had a devastating effect on our communities. I wanted to create a monument to the fire fighters that risked their lives to protect ours. In researching this project, war and being engaged in battle was an occurring theme; the tactics used to combat the fire, the visible destruction of the aftermath, the trauma felt by all affected and the idea of “monument” – how we recognise particular people or events that shape the culture of our society. I likened the image of the fire fighter to that of our diggers – always ready for action, ready to put their body Shock and Awe Cardboard, paper, glue, photocopy print, 161 x 71 x 89cm, 2010 NFS

on the line, someone that can be relied on in times of urgency.

Louis is of Filipino background and moved to Australia at the age of three. He completed a Bachelor of Visual and Media Arts at Monash University, Churchill Campus in 2009. He lives and works in Gippsland and is currently studying his Masters of Visual Art part-time. In 2008 he participated in Monash University Fine Arts semester in Prato, Italy and earlier this year went to Takasago City, Japan, as an ambassador for Latrobe City Council as part of their sister city artist exchange program. In 2009 he was awarded the Latrobe Regional Gallery prize for best final year art student at Monash, which provided the opportunity of a solo exhibition at Gallery ARC, Yinnar in 2010.

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Chandra Paul Chandra began her work life as a psychologist, but decided to study ceramic art ten years ago when the strain of her field became overwhelming. She felt an immediate affinity with the medium and has spent the subsequent years engaged in independent studio practice. She enjoys the tactile nature of the work and has developed skills as a sculptor and functional artist. She usually works with coils making loose expressive slip and glaze decorated earthenware forms and in the past has sold her work in small solo exhibitions or artists markets. This year she has decided to work more conceptually and to create installation pieces.

Mass and Void (detail), Earthenware ceramic, 10 x 200 x 200cm, 2010, $1200

Mass and Void is an installation which utilises the idea of “wrapped air� or negative space to evoke a feeling of absence.

It reflects my own response to the distance between political discourse and meaning and also derives from the existential idea that we are only our reflection in another entity. This is intended to be my three dimensional picture of the loss of connectedness and reflection. As a way of portraying and engaging in a process of non-entity, I’ve devised a series of landscapes which can never be complete but wax and wane over time as they are installed and deinstalled in a series of spaces and contexts.

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Carmen Reid

The Wind Carries Messages to Earthbound Clouds, Steelwool, 170 x 200 x 400cm (variable) 2010, $6400

Carmen completed a Fine Art Degree with First Class in 2009.

Her arts practice is predominantly sculptural but informed by drawing as a tool for observation and problem solving. She is interested in a broad range of themes and processes and employs an intuitive approach to discern the best outcome for each work. An ongoing interest in tactility and the representation and suggestion of movement plays a key role in her motivations as an artist. Working out of the Pigeon Hole Studios in Brunswick, Carmen has consistently exhibited work over the last few years. She was awarded the 2010 Williamstown Contemporary Art Prize and is a recipient of the Australia Council Artstart Grant.

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For as long as stories

have been told we’ve told them about the weather. ‘The Wind Carries Messages to Earthbound Clouds’ is a homage to the unsettling effects of wind whose fickle quality is referenced across history and cultures, through myth, literature and science to describe why it is often said ‘the wind is driving me crazy’!

Playing a key role in determining behaviour, influencing movement, mood and preferences for open spaces or shelter, wind is either a scourge on daily activities or a welcome dependable friend. In this case it is a fitful and persistent surge causing sudden instability, leaving the figures variously scattered and either succumbed to or still resisting the maelstrom. Rendered in fine-grade steel wool, the grey figures resemble the blurred appearance of clouds, their human forms discerned the way images emerge when staring at clouds. Their indistinct appearance gives the impression of a surplus of energy suppressed beneath the surface, such as the force contained within a brooding storm cloud or tornado. They attempt to demonstrate that when the weather changes, so do we.

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Fatih Semiz

Ab aerterno Exterior plywood, Tasmanian Oak veneer and paint, 155 x 200 x 90cm, 2009 $12,900

Fatih was born in Turkey and became an Australian citizen in 2010. He completed a degree in Fine Art (Sculpture) at the Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul. After completing his degree he travelled to Scandinavia, where he worked at the Konstfack University College of Arts in Stockholm. He has several sculptures on permanent display in Sweden, including Sigtuna Museum, Visby Art College, and the Head Office of Swedish Matches.

In 2005 he came to Australia as an artist in residence at a private school in Melbourne and three of his pieces are displayed permanently in the school grounds. He is based in Melbourne and has shown his work in various exhibitions including the Townsville Ephemera, and this year won the City of Stonnington and Toorak Village Trader’s Association Sculpture Award.

Much of my recent work reflects an interest in geometric sequential forms and the patterns we find in both theory and the natural world. This work is based on a Cambrian mollusc frame-like form, showing the idea of time as another dimension, as it wraps around and folds in on itself. It explores timelessness and the infinite, where the spaces are as important to the viewing as the solid areas.

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Julie Shiels I make work by casting the empty spaces in plastic packaging after the goods have been removed. In this two part work – one installed inside the gallery and the other outside - I have reproduced this particular form in various scales and materials to make a monument to technology.

Invasive, pervasive, welcomed or reviled this work explores Colony Parts A Timber Flock and plaster, 100 x 40 x 45cm, 2010, $1200

societies complex relationship with technology. Colony – Parts A + B is part of my ongoing interest in reworking discarded objects to suggest a future archaeology - a way of pondering the present while imagining the future.

Colony Parts B Fibreglass, 150 x 85 x 35cm, 2010, $5500 each

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Julie makes work for the gallery and public space, including the web. Her practice includes installation and photography but she also stencils discarded furniture in the street with quotes, truisms and stories. Her most recent shows were Sleeper at Monash Gallery of Art, Flock at fortyfivedownstairs and Rubbish Theory at Platform. Her most recent project Cusp is the result of an emerging artist grant she received from the Australia Council for the Arts. The work was exhibited at RMIT Project Space and at the Substation. Julie has a Masters in Art in Public Spaces where she teaches in post-graduate program at RMIT.

Shoso Shimbo Shoso has over twenty years experience in Ikebana and studied under the late Sogetsu Head Master, Hiroshi Teshigahara. He specialises in large floral installations and occasional arrangements. Shoso was selected by Belle magazine as one of “Australia’s top floral designers” and has won multiple awards at the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show, including the Gold Award in Floral Display. In 2009 Shoso exhibited his work at the Chelsea Flower Show in the UK. His current focus is on Ikebana and modern Art and on the relationship between nature and sculpture. Shoso has BA and MA in Asian Philosophy and PhD in Education.

He is a director of JAPEP and an adjunct research fellow at the Japanese Studies Centre, Monash University. He is currently undertaking a Master of Fine Art (Sculpture) at the Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University.

Cocoon, Branches (Broom) and nylon rope, 60 x 60 x 60cm, 2010, $660

The relationship between art and nature has long been a theme in the world of sculpture. Some artists focus on making realistic representations of nature and placing them in new contexts such as Roxy Paine, Bluff (2002) and Jennifer Pastor, Spring from the Four Seasons (1994-6). In this work I am interested in a more abstract representation of nature. A cocoon made of one metre broom branches – rigid, contained, defined. The metre as we all know it, essential to the smooth running of our daily life in so many ways. Another metre of unravelled nylon rope - deconstructed, reduced to its most basic elements, freed from the tyranny of a measure imposed from outside. The metre as a springboard for imagination and transformation. Here is a combination of nature and culture, with a blurring of the division between the man made and the natural, asking the question; what is a metre?

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Brendon Taylor Brendon was born in Victoria in 1960 but grew up in Devonport, Tasmania.

He always had a keen interest in art and when his parents passed away when he was eighteen he took up an invitation to live with relatives in Gippsland by stowing away on the Devonport to Melbourne Ferry. He worked in heavy industry for a short time before enrolling in visual arts at Gippsland Institute of Education, receiving his Post Graduate Diploma in 1987. He currently works full time at Museum Victoria as a Preparator and pursues his sculpture practice in his spare time.

Ticker Mixed media 21 x 14 x 9cm, 2009 $480

Ticker

is one of a continuing series of sculptures

exploring the meaning of the heart in our society. We know of the physical nature of the heart but it has so many other meanings attached to it. Almost every day I notice some reference to it in some way. I am attempting to give these references a visual meaning/interpretation.

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Sholto Turner

Bon-Sigh Bronze, 20 x 15 x 35cm, 2010, $3950

Through an artists eye, I constantly observe and draw inspiration from our surroundings and environment. This work is in appreciation of the beauty of nature, and its ability to evolve in the face of adversity.

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Mary Van den Broek Mary worked as an Occupational Therapist for over twenty years but has been pursuing her interest in sculpture over the past nine years.

In that time she has been making work and exhibiting at various exhibitions including the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show where last year she was awarded the Emerging Artist Prize. She has been a member of the Victorian Sculpture Society since 2003 and the Contemporary Sculptors Association since 2008. She has completed public art commissions including a work for the St John of God Hospital in Ballarat and in 2009 completed Honours in Visual Art (Sculpture) at the University of Ballarat. Her works can be viewed at www.marysculptor.com.au

Time out Recycled Steel and Red Gum 110 x 90 x 80cm, 2010 $1550

My work in recycled steel

and red gum can be described as a line drawing

in space that reflect ideas of relationships, and highlight everyday, often imperfect objects and experiences we often take for granted. Each piece is freestanding, and intended for the outdoors, to age in the elements and blend into the natural environment the materials came from. Light and the shadows thrown by the work are important to draw attention to the passage of time and the inevitability of change. These concepts I believe are central to existence.

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Ri Van Veen I use figurative forms to create a dialogue relevant to other people; the human figure is a natural vehicle to express and interpret human emotion and existential conflict as well as social, familial, feminist and environmental issues. This work relates to the women’s rights movement that gave women the ability to vote, the opportunity to be educated, equality in the labourforce and bodily integrity and autonomy. Rather than reflect on what has been achieved, this piece explores contemporary values and perceptions relating to women. What defines, fulfils, enlightens and embraces women and what confines, denigrates, restricts and humiliates women? Where do women march to from here?

The Women’s Movement (detail) Ceramic and paper, Installation approx 75 x 60 x 290cm, 2010 $100 each or $3000 complete

Ri was born in Victoria to Dutch migrants and during her forty-six years she has experienced a wide variety of employment and life styles. From owning and operating a cleaning business to yabby farmer, from mother to student and teacher. In 2002 she found her passion and worked in a well-being, anti-bullying program in schools until Chronic Fatigue Syndrome ended this career in 2004. Communication has been a key component throughout most of her career and now it has entered a new phase of deeper expression through her art. Since moving to Williamstown in 2006 she has exhibited in over sixteen group and selected exhibitions and is a member of WRAN and the Newport Substation. More of her works can be viewed at http://ri-creations.com.

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Simon Venturi Simon is a member of NOMAD ink studio which is a multi disciplinary studio, dedicated to creative endeavours within the fields of Visual Art, Architecture, Graphic Design and Photography. The studio pursues the production of creative work generated from ‘research’ as well as ‘the process of designing’ and strives to maintain a continual process of exploration, evaluation and regeneration.

Sea Change Organic Composition Found object sculpture 90 x 90 x 6cm, 2009 $5000

Primarily Architecturally

trained, I enjoy collaborating with artists of diverse backgrounds and believe creative work merging artistic fields broadens our collective creative culture by encouraging a cross discipline interaction and dialogue. Much of my work, in various fields explores the shared values, contrasts and conflicts between processes of natural formation and cultural interpretation and meaning.

This piece incorporates organic ‘found objects’ in the form of seaweed balls collected on Western Australia’s Myalup Beach [unique to the Australia’s South West region].

Each ball possesses and exhibits its own memory encompassing its natural processes of formation by the sea, movement on the tides, time washed up on the sand as well as its collection and current contribution to a ‘work of art’. Presented in a rigid, structured, arrangement the work explores the contrasts between organic objects formed by a natural process, arranged in a formal composition and presented as a ‘work of art’.

It also challenges the viewer to re-evaluate these natural objects, their inherent beauty and significance, therefore urging each individual to ensure our natural coastal regions are preserved for future generations.

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Kate Vivian

Nature Lovers, Mixed media, 80 x 150 x 150cm, 2010, $600

"Each material contains a cosmos"

*

Predominantly my work explores immigrant actions using found clay to explore and reveal place through site-specific installation. This work however, is a whimsical take on the unintended consequences of hopeful and well-meaning actions. It looks at the way we love nature, especially when it conforms through finely bred and selected perfection to the latest fashion. * Saturo Hochino. Ceramics Art and Perception. no 39. 2000 Reincarnated Pre Copernican Mud. pg 64

Kate’s interest in art mainly involved drawing and photography but upon returning to study for her Bachelor of Visual Arts at University of Ballarat the opportunity to study ceramics and engage with the tactile three-dimensional medium proved irresistible. She completed her Honours in 2008 and is currently engaged in Masters research.

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Liz Walker

Caught in the breeze Found corrugated iron, wire, golf balls and rivets, 66 x 57 x 38cm, 2010 $500

Liz completed the Diploma of Visual Arts at RMIT in 2004, the Bachelor of Fine Arts, RMIT, 2006 and the Master of Fine Arts, also at RMIT in 2008. Her work is an investigation into the reuse and conversion of materials and centres on the exploration of social issues in relation to domestic items, found materials, our everyday environment and the people in it. Liz won the CSA Exhibition Prize in 2010, the Lorne Sculpture Exhibition Emerging Artist Award in 2009, the CSA Barnes prize in 2007, The Area Contemporary Art Space Prize in 2006 and the Artholes self portrait prize in 2005.

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This work is part of a series exploring the future of housing in Australia and in particular the conflict between urban development and environmental concerns. It presents the possibility of roof top gardening as an alternative space to grow food.

Carmel Wallace The Discovery Bay beaches that are the source of my ‘junk materials’ are subject to the currents and prevailing weather of the Southern Ocean.

Much of the debris has been circulating in the ocean for some time before reaching these beaches, perhaps escaping from the great Pacific gyre that is burdened with such discarded plastics. The bright colours are cheerful and carnival-like, but closer inspection raises questions re the source of the objects themselves and ramifications for the oceans that contain them.

An Octopus’s Garden #3 Beach-found plastic objects and cable-ties, 200 x 200 x 8cm, 2009 $4750

Carmel’s art practice focuses on the advantages of multi-disciplinary exploration of place and its ramifications for environmental awareness and ethics. Much of her work evolves from time spent in the elements and the objects she finds whilst beach-walking along the southern coast of Victoria. Carmel’s academic qualifications include an Arts degree from La Trobe University and a PhD from Deakin University. She has regular solo exhibitions in Melbourne and has been selected for numerous group exhibitions including the Blake Prize, the Lorne Sculpture Exhibition, and Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW. Her work is represented in private, corporate and public collections including the State Library of Victoria, and the National Gallery of Australia. Recent major sculptures include one of five made for the Fresh & Salty Regional Arts Victoria state-wide project, and A Seat for Vida, a public sculpture commissioned by the Historic Buildings Restoration Committee in Portland Victoria.

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Anthea Williams

Plastiscene, Plastic milk bottles, led & dichroic lights, plywood, 150 x 150 x 150cm, 2010, $2000

Anthea completed a Post Graduate Diploma in fine art at Monash University Gippsland in 1986, returning there to complete her Masters in 1999. She has travelled widely including Israel and Rome in 1984 and New York, Cuba, Mexico and San Francisco in 2005. She has also exhibited internationally in the USA at the Soho Chelsea International Art Competition and been the recipient of grants and awards including the Janet Holmes a Court Artist Grant in 2007. Her works are held in public and private collections throughout Australia.

My art practice comments on consumerism and questions obsolescence. It looks

at how and why we engage with the mass produced object and challenges the viewer to reconsider their notions of waste. I am developing a series of ‘Plastiscene’ pyramid forms made from 2 litre milk containers which are internally lit. The pyramids comment on society’s personal and collective aspirations such as the need to construct monuments symbolising power and order. As a construction material, the milk containers represent a contradiction; they have associations with nurturing yet are empty; they are building blocks, substitutes for bricks and mortar, yet are light throw away plastic waste. The pyramid structure itself references both hierarchy and the great (yet extinct) civilisations of ancient Mexico and Egypt. The installation includes two pyramids – one fully constructed, the other has started to crumble. This degradation directly relates to my thoughts on the place of plastics in our contemporary civilisation. Plastic is the new indestructible sculptural material for many artists (including myself) who wish to comment on human consumption.

The Plastiscene installation looks beautiful, yet its material is more ominous, as viewers are already aware that they are looking at a product which is undesirably archival.

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Kevin Young Eukarya An exotic landscape, it is from the earth we breathe. When the environment is stripped by human endeavour it becomes a misappropriation of mind, a shared insanity. This sculpture is a portal of human interventions.

A drifting catastrophe of human consciousness and uncertainties made uncertain by adverse cyclonic climate, political and industrial differences that are illimitable and unsympathetic toward the environment and humanity. Empirical rule is without theory, and extirpate is absolute.

Eukarya: (The domain that contains all the eukaryotic kingdoms such as plants, animal’s, fungi and protest’s) McGraw-Hill, Dictionary of Environmental Science, USA, 2003

Eukarya Plastic, steel, wood, paint, bones, rope, soil (bark) and granite 370 x 240 x 240cm, 2010, $120,000

This work was generated from discarded material found outside a factory. Kevin says the material itself, now recycled, has to a certain degree dictated the conclusion. “My art is often a creative journey of process shaped from study, discovery, consciousness, lateral thinking, and sometimes accidental occurrences. It is often sourced from curious abstractions of natural and unnatural forms of life; a paradox, sometimes illogical, sometimes inconsistent and sometimes contradictory but never impossible”.

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Sales Enquiries

For any of the works in the catalogue can be made by contacting the curator Ken Wong on 0419 570 846.

If you are

interested in becoming involved in the Toyota Community Spirit Gallery program or wish to be added to our mailing list to be kept informed of upcoming events, email info@watcharts.com.au or visit www.watcharts.com.au/toyota.html or phone 03 58214548.

IMAGE: Barracuda Marco Luccio, Plastic, wood, metal & brush, 2009 IMAGE BACK COVER: The Wind Carries Messages to Earthbound Clouds Carmen Reid, Steelwool 2010