2012 Heysen Sculpture Biennial B6
26 February - 9 April 2012
The 2012 Heysen Sculpture Biennial was opened by Nick Mitzevich, Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia. John Neylon wrote the Catalogue essay.
Nick Mitzevich, Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia, opening the 2012 Heysen Sculpture Biennial. Also pictured, Allan Campbell, Curator of The Cedars and HSB committee member, and Pamela Kouwenhoven, artist and HSB committee member.
Heysen Sculpture Biennial Committee:
Curator: Allan Campbell
Coordinator: Alison Brown
Artists: Penny Choate, Pamela Kouwenhoven, Max Lyle, Ron Rowe
Friday, 2 March 2012 - Dr Tamsin Kerr, Director of the Cooroora Institute, Queensland will write and speak about the Homage to Nature exhibition, its place in Australian environmental art and the works of the artists taking part. 'Collaborating with country and sculpting our future: site-specific artworks as creative policy' is the title of her presentation.
Dr Tamsin Kerr's article on the 2012 Heysen Sculpture Biennial B6 is in the Art Monthly magazine, August 2012.
Photos by Daniel Cazzolato 2012 unless noted otherwise.
Catalogue essay by John Neylon, an Adelaide-based curator and art writer for The Adelaide Review.
Index of Artists
Kym AFFORD | Roy ANANDA | Craige ANDRAE | Silvio APPONYI | Rae BOLOTIN | Donna BRINK-RICE | Penny CHOATE | Jan CLIFFORD | Rick CLISE | Helen CRAWFORD | Johnnie DADY | Leith ELDER | Sandy ELVERD | Lynn ELIZINGA-HENRY | India FLINT | Karen GENOFF | Ian HAMILTON | Anton HART | John HAYWARD | Kon HEYER | Margie HOOPER | Greg JOHNS | David KERR | Sue KNEEBONE | Pamela KOUWENHOVEN | Max LYLE | Gavin MALONE | James MARTIN | Rick MARTIN | Tis MILNER-NICHOLS | Andrea NUM GLOVER | Chris ORMEROD | Astra PARKER | Sophia PHILLIPS | Will POWRIE | Helen PRINTER | Julia ROBINSON | Colin ROGERS | Ron ROWE | Deb SLEEMAN | Jojo SPOOK | David SUTER | Peter SYNDICAS | Evette SUNSET | Marijana TADIC | Tim THOMSON | Westley TULLY | Nic UHLMANN | Vic WACLAWIK | Mal WASS | Egbert WELLMANN | Sally WICKES | Liz WILLIAMS | John WOOD | Margaret WORTH | Trevor WREN
All photos by Daniel Cazzolato Photography unless stated otherwise.
Kym AFFORD
Next Stop, Merope, Pleiades
Reading of the Roswell Incident, USA (1947), so hushed up and too of The Dark Object, Nova Scotia (1967), I have no doubt of extra terrestrial life.
Welded aluminium & glass, 1200cm dia by 20cm $5,000
Roy ANADA & Johnnie DADY
Doo Wop
The work consists of two corrugated iron structures; both are set to Greenwich Mean Time.
Roy Ananda is represented by Dianne Tanzer Gallery and Projects, Melbourne.
Johnnie Dady is represented by Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide and Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne.
Corrugated iron, timber, paint, fixings. 380cm x 180cm x 240cm each. POA
Silvio APPONYI
Growing
I have been working on some marble vertical themed pieces in the last couple of years. This is the first of the polished granite works, portraits of grass. The most common subject seen by man. On which our farming economy relies.
Black granite, 180cm x 30cm x 30cm $33,000
Rae BOLOTIN
Seed Tree 5
This work was inspired by tiny seeds I found in the area close to my studio that is located on the edge of Wollemi National Park, and the photographs taken with the help of powerful microscopes.
Stainless steel, 103cm x 71cm x 40cm, $8,000
Donna BRINK-REID
Fungi Fantasia A Tribute
Fungi play unseen crucial roles:
They are components of ecosystems -
Transporting, storing, releasing
And recycling nutrients.
Fungi contribute to:
Food, yeasts, medicines and dyes;
Biodegradation of waste;
Forgery-proof money.
Bark, sticks, cotton, paint, still growing. POA
Penny CHOATE
Fishing for Waste
This work is intended as a contemplation on.
What we harvest from the sea,
What we take from the earth,
What we do with the waste.
Aluminium, wire, tin. 135cm x 93cm x 93cm, $2,000
Jan CLIFFORD
Reclamation
I was interested in the challenge of developing random weave forms from discarded prunings from my garden which are also replicated in The Cedars garden. These impermanent forms will remain for a time but will eventually return to the earth from whence they came.
Various prunings including privet, wisteria, birch, fatima and daffodil leaf paper. 150cm x 180cm x 180cm. POA
Rick CLISE
The Agonising Paralysis of Choice
Do I choose the safe, known option?
Or risk the consequences of the unfamiliar and uncertain?
What if I choose wrongly?
Or if I could have made a better choice?
Steel pipe and sign blades. 220cm x 100cm. $850
Helen CRAWFORD
Below the Surface
Human interconnection with nature is tempered. We live with a facade of stability and control over our life, and our place in the world. We are energy, operating above and below our conscious abilities.
Copper, glass, clay, wood. 115cm x 60.5cm x 60.5cm. $2,000
Leith ELDER
Asphodelus
Onion weed. An ornamental plant imported from Europe that has become a pest species in Australia, thriving in disturbed and impoverished soils. Ideas and cultures, like plants, can thrive in unexpected places.
Steel, expanded foam rubber. 200cm x 200cm. POA
Sandy ELVERD & Sue KNEEBONE
Vital Signs
A solitary bed cradles young native plants struggling to grow among rusty remains of urban waste. Visitors are encouraged to sustain these plants' vital signs so they survive into the future.
Dimensions variable POA
Lynn ELIZINGA-HENRY
Forest of Dreams
The forest is peopled with evocative creatures that resonate with our unknown ancestry, uncovering our unconscious mythology. Created in collaboration with Anni Luur Fox and Suzi Windram.
Fused glass, mixed media, steel 200cm x 150cm approx $3,800
India FLINT
Landmark
Humans have been creating signs upon the Earth for thousands of years; as waymarks, indicators of possession or in order to give emphasis to sites of importance. The circle drawn from earth, stones and cloth dyed with windfallen leaves declares this piece of land significant for a time.
Stones, wool, eucalyptus dyes 150cm diameter approx $2,700
Karen GENOFF
Harvest Home
I see Easel Eucalypt Haystack Vast landscape Home and Hearth Where At an open window Sally, Her back to me She sits Sewing. This Brilliant Light Bathes Everything.
Wooden easel, timber, doormats, sea grass string. 150cm x 180cm x 100cm approx POA
Ian HAMILTON & John HAYWARD
Bower Tower Project: Large Marquette #1
Ian Hamilton and John Hayward established the Bower Tower Project in 2010. The project, initially inspired by the structures of the male Golden Bowerbird (Prionodura newtoniana) is a continuing investigation of art making and structure building
Documentation: Leo Davis and Peter Lindon, Metalwork: Tom Borgas, Carpentry: Steven Cybulka
Wood, metal, rope 1500cm x 1500cm x 600cm NFS
Anton HART
Landing
Landingwas originally made in 1996 and inspired by Eileen Gray's famous 1920s house E. 1027. Resetting this piece in 2011 overlooking Heysen's studio reflects on ideas of looking and framing, the landscape and history.
Etched glass, G-clamps 250cm x 130cm $5,000
Kon HEYER
Central
Made from discarded sleepers and brake drums, this has become my largest sculpture. The rich texture of the wood and the circular shape of the metal were the inspiration for this work.
Wood, metal 250cm x 150cm x 75cm $6,000
Margie HOOPER
Mirror of perfection, St Francis
Playing with different materials to serendipitously find fresh meaning.
Metal, wire, plastic, fabric, glass, timber, 165cm x 80cm x 90cm. $1500
Greg JOHNS
Shedding Figure
Shedding Figureis from the series I began around nineteen-ninety. My aim has been to develop a sense of figuration which comes out of a 'reading' of the Australian landscape. These protection figures also reach out to universal themes.
Corten steel 225cm x 37cm x 38cm. $37,000
David KERR
Turkeys and Saplings
This is an abstraction of Heysen's Bronzewings and Saplingspainting. Heysen wrote in 1921 that this painting was the most complicated piece of design he had tackled. My assemblage forages in this painting within the three dimensional space of Heysen's saplings.
Assemblage of plastic chairs, sapling environs. Located in a 10m x 10m section of saplings. POA
Pamela KOUWENHOVEN
Burnt Offering
Exhausting the supply of fossil fuel, creating greenhouse gasses, global warming. Is this our bequest to the planet?
Metal exhaust pipes, bitumen paint, burnt wood, charcoal. Size variable. POA
Max LYLE
Four Freedoms 2
The four sculptural forms refer to the definitions of the 'Four Freedoms' of democracy as stated by US President Roosevelt in the 1940s Freedom of Speech, Freedom of choice of Religion, Freedom from Poverty, Freedom from Fear. All have relevance to our present day world where these basic freedoms are constantly being challenged and compromised.
Mixed media: wire mesh, steel, bamboo, and other natural and manufactured materials. Height 200cm. $4,000
Gavin MALONE
Keep Me Wet Baby
To be wet is to be alive. Our bodies are about 70% water and 20% carbon. A sack of water held up by a frame of carbon, endlessly recycled, even through a River Redgum.
River Redgum - eucalyptus camaldulensis, 190cm x 76cm x 6cm. $3,300
James MARTIN (1944-2011)
Régates
The enlarged features and form of the five elements that make up the Régatesseries illustrate James' ongoing fascination with, and inquiry into, the limitless ways in which it is possible to represent the human face and form.
Sculpture completed by Rick Clise
Coloured cast glass-reinforced cement, 5 elements, each 104cm x 26cm x 25cm. $2,250 each: $10,000 for series of 5
Rick MARTIN
Pferde Stuhl (Horse Chair)
Early Colonial Horse Chair - thought to have been brought to Australia c. 1840 by German Whalers. This is an experiment in horse chairs which culminated in the horse divan, an example of which can be found in the collection of the Cameroon Museum of Decorative Arts.
Metal, wood, paint. POA
Tis MILNER-NICHOLS
Nostalgic Lens
Life is no picnic, or is it?
It is all too easy to romanticize bygone eras as simpler times or we could smugly vilify ignorance of early settlers and the unwitting destruction of delicate eco systems. Hindsight distorts the lens of perception.
Focusing on form, colour and texture Tis Milner-Nichols selects materials for their inherent qualities. The resultant sculptural language develops a narrative to explore the gap between encounter and identification.
Tin, copper wire, yarn, 44cm x 146cm x 87cm. POA
Andrea NUM GLOVER
Phone the crows La Nina Fibonnacci
Phone the crows La Nina Fibonnacciis a playful piece Re/calling/cording past sequences: Methods of sensory communication, of visual appropriation, of cinema, of naming weather patterns and the fabrication of identity. El Nino, a South American man had many abusive calls blaming him for the weather pattern!
Mixed media, plastic, bakelite, wood, paint, dimensions variable. POA
Astra PARKER
Standing. Still.
Standing. Still is part of a series of forms which focus on the coexistence of movement and stillness in one form, as well as the form's relationship to a place at one time.
Galvanised steel, 330cm x 30cm x 30cm. $7,800
Sophia PHILLIPS
Lost or Found
These objects started to appear in my fist as I prepared clay to Make Something. And they accumulated. My procrastinations, simple fascinations. The urge to collect and conquer the ineffable. Make meaning without meaning to.
Porcelain, soil, grass, Size variable. POA
Will POWRIE
Feathertop
Through vernacular materials, this work pays homage to native grass species, in particular the prickly and highly adaptive desert Spinifex, or Triodiagenus. Spinifex is both destroyed and regenerated by fire.
Steel, local timber, copper, rubber hose, stone, spinifex resin, 300cm x 150cm diameter. $2,850
Helen PRINTER
What next?
When I got home, the big tree that sheltered my house was lying, cut, in the paddock.
Macrocarpa cyprus wood, bronze, found objects, 220cm x 100cm x 130cm. $15,000
Julia ROBINSON
Guardian
Heysen's fairy tale cottage studio, the Welsh myth of the faithful hound Gellert and a whimsical play on garden statuary inspired the work Guardian
Flywire, fiberglass, foam, plaster and garden gnome, Size variable. $3,500
Colin ROGERS
Diaspora
Messages in bottles from an unsustainable Earth. The dispersing seeds contain the same information that was fixed to early Pioneer space craft.
Plastic bottles, aluminium, 1000cm approx. $650
Ron ROWE
Out of the Water
Hebel stone, granite rocks, paint, 300cm x 270cm x 100cm. $3,333
Ron Rowe
Out of the Water - version 2
Hebel stone, granite rocks, paint, 300cm x 270cm x 100cm. $3,333
My sculpture is an ongoing investigation with the monolithic forms in a variety of media.
Deb SLEEMAN
Regrowth
I search for gaps in which to create a dialogue between the intangible connections of people and the natural world, continuing to explore the perceived animate and inanimate as integral rather than separate entity.
Imagining the future through fragments of the past and the deep resonance of the elements are the fuel for this work.
Pressed tin, copper, cast glass, steel, rivets, 220cm x 400cm x 200cm. $9,900
Jojo SPOOK
Windswept
Provides elements of sensuality combined with the use of harsh materials. Fashion item, the dress is a metaphor for the female form being grounded with winged elements of freedom.
Metal, dimensions variable. $2,800
David SUTER
Convocation
Distant callings coinciding Earth, moon, stars, Rain.
Fibre reinforced concrete, Five spheres - 50cm, 70cm, 80cm, 110cm, 150cm diameters. Five pieces $7,250, Individual $450; $1,250; $1,350; $2,150; $3,200
Peter SYNDICAS
The Shady Pool
Peter's sculptures explore a fascination with organic shapes in their simplest forms - fractals of nature. Twigs - fragile, precious, shaped by the elements. Delicately carved, the revealed forms are translated in a magnified scale and immortalized in bronze.
Bronze sculpture on marble base, 50cm x 180cm x 22cm. $6,800
Evette SUNSET
1000 Stooks of Gratitude
The Idea - the work is a space both created and experienced by all those who came to pause within it, taking pleasure and meaning from their time here together with each other, the land, its creatures and weathers: we bend to the earth and as the trembling grasses pass through our hands listen, just listen
Mementos - DVD documentary and photographic cards will be on sale at The Cedars shop.
Wild Yorkshire Fog grass tied in situ by visitors and left to dry. 400cm diameter
Marijana TADIC
The Bounty of Light
Hans Heysen, who arrived in Adelaide from Germany in 1884, recalled, 'My first impression upon arrival was that of expanse, of simplicity and beauty of contours - the light, flat and all objects sharply defined.'
Certainly for me who also traveled to Australia, the singularity, the clear intensity of the light, never fails to astonish. The Bounty of Lightis a reference to the amazing richness of Australian light - the quality that inspires and sets the Australian landscape apart.
Galvanised steel and automotive paint, 4 spheres: 1m $5,000, 1.5m $7,500, 1.8m $9,000, 2.2m $12,000, Group of 4 spheres, $30,000
Tim THOMSON
Shoot
This past year has made me increasingly aware of the transient nature of life. This is my response.
Bronze, 200cm x 100cm x 100cm. $21,280
Westley TULLY
Sacrifice
-of your life-
Cast bronze and braided cord, 61.5cm. $1,800
Nicholas UHLMANN
Partners
Partners presents a union between interconnected opposites, giving rise to an underlying tension to negate a seemingly dual existence.
Copper, stainless steel, rivets, mild steel, timber, 448cm x 41cm x 36cm. $13,000
Vic WACLAWIK
Transmootation
Colonial settlers brought livestock with them that was unfamiliar to the Australian landscape. Cattle have transformed the landscape from its native state.
Paper mâché, wood, steel,150cm x 200cm x 300cm. POA
Mal WASS
Three in Stasis
Where does the landscape finish?
At the horizon? - At your feet? - At your front door?
Through simple existence we create a 'lived' relationship with the landscape and its inherent materiality, a relationship built from a collective history of interactions and interventions upon the spaces we inhabit.
Taking influence from the traditional Japanese aesthetic the 'materiality' and interventions combined in Three in Stasisis in response to the evolving interrelationships we have with our surrounds. These relationships I believe are more than personal responses, they are part of us.
Limestone, jute, eucalypt, 240cm x 240cm x 240cm. $3,000
Egbert WELLMANN
Uprooted
The very structured edges of my figures, which made me name them Fringe Forms© and their partly dissolved bodies are meant to be an expression of the influence of space. Just as the ocean determines the coastline through its inlets and bays, space (the space around) is an intrinsic element which influences the contour of my sculptures.
Marine plywood and acrylic, 220cm. $1,500
Sally WICKES
Watcher
The white rabbit emerging from the ground carries layers of allegorical meaning. In essence it represents the role of earthly and ecological stewardship, and the responsibility for wise and timely choices.
Mixed media, Mt Gambier Limestone, 100cm approx, $1,800
Liz WILLIAMS
Roberta
The work was made specifically for this environment. My intention is that it should convey something of the universality of being a child. Being placed in the garden becomes a metaphor for cycles and seasons, past and present.
Ceramic, mosaic, 120cm high. $11,000
John WOOD
The Secret Life of Trees
The Sculpture refers to the layers of experience held within every tree. The memories of seasons, drought, rain, winter and summer, held for many years and seldom revealed. Memories of time crystallized in an internal structure.
Steel, wood, resin, Three elements 300cm x 7.5cm. $10,000
Margaret WORTH
Comings and Goings: sanctuary
A response to the natural site and to the context of Heysen's home and studio, reflecting on life, art and reputations. They all come and go.
An anthill and rotting wood are given sanctuary, temporarily.
Since 2009, just before the huge dust storm that crossed eastern Australia, I have been interested in working with dusts. I have found it a broad ranging material from the kitchen to the cosmos, with a wealth of scientific studies on how it has affected the composition of the world and how our lives are affected. Everything begins to look different in the light of knowing it's origins in dust.
The idea of sanctuary is central to the existence of The Cedars and seemed fitting also for this industrious ant hill, perched on a fallen one of Heysen's beloved gum trees.
PVC, polyethylene, ant hill and rotting wood. Dimensions: 230 X 300 cm diameter
Trevor WREN
Miss Australia
Carbon is essential to all known living systems and without it life as we know it could not exist. It is one of the few elements known since antiquity. Without it this work would not exist.
Welded railway spikes. 160cm x 240cm x 10cm. $9,000