29th Oct – 16th Nov 2013
Celebration drinks – Saturday 2nd November 4-6pm
Studio 20/17
6b/2 Danks St, Waterloo NSW 2017
Open: Tues – Sat – 11am – 5pm
Concepts are intertwined with the processes employed in this series, which was made while pondering the act of creation — the roles of chance and the subconscious in the artistic process, and how shapes and meanings manifest themselves in an object. Accidental and random designs have a winsome allure that has long fascinated artists, but is what we humans do ever truly random? Can we make without applying meaning?
The works were conceived through working with accidents & play after a period of travel through Europe, America & Greece: experimenting with shape, material, process & colour; allowing these outcomes to acquire meanings that may have been present as subconscious thoughts & building on them; letting themes (islands, myths, museums & memories) evolve. The works are about the accidental creation of beauty & expression, my Greek heritage & the effects of time on objects. Automatic drawings have become coastlines of Greek islands & barnacled textures of submerged ancient artefacts. Experiments with patina & pigment mimic 3000 years of oxide. Anodised niobium creates psychedelic aquatic creatures. Randomly hammered & wrinkled 3D shapes protrude like archipelagos. The meandering lines now reference journeys: ancient mythological quests, the voyages of seafaring vessels that lie wrecked beneath the waves & my own wanderings (geographical, conceptual, & temporal) discovering my heritage, path & place.
Relating to the passage of time on surfaces, metals are coloured using different kinds of oxidising techniques, like anodising niobium, blackening silver, blue/green patina on shibuichi & copper, & adhered pigment encrustations. Shapes are arbitrarily cut from thin sheet & hammered to create three-dimensional folded & wrinkled forms. The hammered textures are then used to create the anodised patterns through a repeated process of abrading & anodising. The cut-out sections are saw-pierced without drilling. The lines are traced from the coastlines of islands & the holes marked in with closed eyes. Allowing freedom to let the object & the meaning develop naturally & playfully is important in this series.
Just as the beauty of a shipwrecked artefact has grown from a random accident so has the inception of the forms, lines & concepts in this series.
Icarus
Iκαρος
2013, anodised niobium, 925 silver, 9 carat gold & silver bimetal
11 x 11.5 x 3 cm