Extant sculpture

This post features some sculptural works that I haven't had reason to destroy, and which I wanted to show to my friend Drew, so I thought it may as well serve as a new entry. Perhaps my next post will be sculptural works that have been destroyed.

First up are some more of the chopstick sculptures that I featured a couple of posts back. The series as a whole is called Everything Ends and was part of my Hate and Envy and Crime and Darkness and Pain exhibition. It was meant to evoke the idea of impermanence, and suggest architectural ruins. I also make connections with the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi.

The first two are 50x50x20cm, and the next three are 21x21x21cm (approximately).



The following wire figures are from a series that has stretched over about 6 or 7 years. I first made 12 for an undergraduate class, then continued to make more and more! A number have sold over the years, and I rearrange them to make different installations for exhibitions. The works have had different names over the years, too, depending on the installation. A lot of them have to do with violence and genocide (one outing was called If You Want to Die in Bed, Don't Care too Much for Country, which was from a line in a song from Miss Saigon of all places). The installation below was called Fall of the Rebel Angels, if I remember correctly.

The first image is the figure just made of wire. I have a small number of these, but most of them have been stuffed with human hair. I made a lot of work in this manner in the late 90s. The main idea was that of humanity being crammed together and shaped by society's cages. Their were also many grid pieces that emphasised the rigidity and regularity of society - a society of Stepford Wives (I made two works with that title - I'll get around to posting them one day!).




This is one of my favourite sculptures. I entered it in the Waverley Art Prize (scroll down for my recent adventures with the WAP if you haven't already) about 5 years ago, and it won the People's Choice Award. I suspected that it had something to do with the fact that the plinth it was on was about a metre away from the table where people filled out their forms! They couldn't remember any of the other works they liked from the exhibition, but hey, that tea cup looks interesting!


It's a real cup, saucer and spoon, covered in thumb tacks/drawing pins which I let rust, then covered with polyester resin. I also have a shoe which I also like (see the Art2Muse page of my work for that image - I didn't have one handy). The shoe was originally a paired sculpture - one a before, and the other an after - based on the Cinderella story (the before has been destroyed. It was meant to be shiny and gold and pristine - with the 'after' being rusted and decayed - but it started to get a number of green patches, presumably from copper in the pins? It had to go!). The tea cup is called Tea and Sympathy, and you're likely to get neither!

The following work (two views) was made for another Erotica/Sex/Pornography show at Kudos Gallery. I think it was Kox and Kuntz. I can't remember the title of this work. I really should do some research before I post! It's an acrylic box with square photographs of penises. A pair of white cotton gloves was provided for people to browse through the images.


These are all ceramic eggshells. I made molds of eggs and shaped the clay, then just experimented with different treatments/pigments/effects. I like a lot of the results, but ceramics is such a bothersome art practice because of the time involved, and the lack of control of the kiln timing (not having my own kiln). This series is called Population Explosion. I used the same title a number of years before for a different work, one with Chico babies all over it. I often recycle work and titles - some are just too good to let go!


This work is called Crowd. I don't think I've ever exhibited it. I found these tiny glass bottles in a store in Melbourne. They're all stuffed with human hair. It's another work dealing with individuality/collectivity. The bottles are 5cm high.