RACKS?
Ah, well, as good a name as any. Actually, I hadn't called these anything at all until a senior curator at a State Art Gallery wrote a review and mentioned something like 'leaves of old newspapers blown by the wind up against fences and racks.' Nice. I hadn't known what these pieces were about until he told me!!
I guess you learn a lot about yourself from critics. But I think it's kinda funny, really. You can make some work based on nothing more than that you 'like' a certain structural means, or you like a certain material that you haven't used before, and then suddenly someone else tells you what you'd been intending ... Wow, was I? ... News to me!
But when I think back on that, it was a product of my never having attended art school or art classes of any kind. I didn't even know what "conceptualize your intention and direction before starting the piece" was. Is this called artistic auto-didacticism?
Ah, well, as good a name as any. Actually, I hadn't called these anything at all until a senior curator at a State Art Gallery wrote a review and mentioned something like 'leaves of old newspapers blown by the wind up against fences and racks.' Nice. I hadn't known what these pieces were about until he told me!!
I guess you learn a lot about yourself from critics. But I think it's kinda funny, really. You can make some work based on nothing more than that you 'like' a certain structural means, or you like a certain material that you haven't used before, and then suddenly someone else tells you what you'd been intending ... Wow, was I? ... News to me!
But when I think back on that, it was a product of my never having attended art school or art classes of any kind. I didn't even know what "conceptualize your intention and direction before starting the piece" was. Is this called artistic auto-didacticism?
Spatial structure.
Leather, rawhide, tea tree wood, linen.
Approx 35 cm high.
In the collection of the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
This was the piece that inspired the comment about 'old newspapers blown against a rack'
Tea-tree frame, linen and rawhide lashing. Text photocopied onto rawhide (my sincere apoligies to the old Jam Factory photocopying machine that copped a flogging) |
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Spatial structure.
Tea tree wood, rawhide, hand colored, feathers, linen, steel.
Approx 40 cm.
In the collection of the Adelaide Opera House Trust.
An interesting piece, this. I can't take credit for its movement and plasticity - that's "Nature." But it was reported to me by the Opera House Trust's curator, that as the weather changed - that is, the degree of humidity in the air - the leaves of rawhide twisted and moved all of their own volition. Since rawhide is a hugely strong material, I was pleased that the rack had been constructed in such a way as to withstand that pressure.
This piece is displayed in many configurations (upside down, on its end, on its side, on and off a mirror.
Tea tree wood, rawhide, hand colored, feathers, linen, steel.
Approx 40 cm.
In the collection of the Adelaide Opera House Trust.
An interesting piece, this. I can't take credit for its movement and plasticity - that's "Nature." But it was reported to me by the Opera House Trust's curator, that as the weather changed - that is, the degree of humidity in the air - the leaves of rawhide twisted and moved all of their own volition. Since rawhide is a hugely strong material, I was pleased that the rack had been constructed in such a way as to withstand that pressure.
This piece is displayed in many configurations (upside down, on its end, on its side, on and off a mirror.
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Circa 1984
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"Postcards from the Past"
Structure commissioned for "The Shoebox Exhibition" touring the United States.
Tea tree wood, linen, cow leather, gold leaf, postcards
- my thanks to Anne Neil for the contribution of the postcards
Size is 'shoebox' size
- a requirement of the exhibition.
"Postcards from the Past"
Structure commissioned for "The Shoebox Exhibition" touring the United States.
Tea tree wood, linen, cow leather, gold leaf, postcards
- my thanks to Anne Neil for the contribution of the postcards
Size is 'shoebox' size
- a requirement of the exhibition.
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Oh, I forgot to mention my love for the somewhat uncontrollable effects that caustic soda has on leather surfaces. Also red sealing wax. |
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I guess this is a return to the somewhat ghoulish funerary influence.
Buffalo hide base, hand coloured. Raku ceramic 'bed'. Copper, feathers, wood lashed to a tea-tree rack. |