Gesture of Balance :: Grant Vaughan

GESTURE OF BALANCE GRANT VAUGHAN

Gesture of Balance GRANT VAUGHAN Grant Vaughan has an acute awareness of sculptural concerns and combines this with the discipline and practicality of ‘making things’. His work is sensitive and elegant, and though it seems to come from nature it does not imitate it. He came to woodworking from a background of architecture and engineering. Karen O’Clery, Director of Narek Galleries, through whom he has exhibited and sold work in Australia and the United States, confirms he has a very disciplined approach. She believes his understanding of form comes from the environment, and his methods from his background.

In 1976 Vaughan found some hilly, sandstone country near Lismore, northern New South Wales which was mostly cleared but had a few old trees and patches of regrowth of native vegetation. He dreamt that it would one day be returned to forest. For 20 years he stopped the practice of annual burning and removed noxious weeds while at the same creating furniture as well as mirrors and sculptural objects, including bowls. During this time, there was significant regrowth of native vegetation. More recently his family has been learning bush regeneration practices and techniques, and is active in looking after the forest.

Most of the property is now re-afforested with hardwood and dry rainforest species including White Beech.

This reafforestation is not for profit or for his own benefit, but to help create a forest free of weeds with a maximum

diversity of flora and fauna. They are now working with an ever-increasing variety of wildlife and flora – a biodiversity hotspot, which is very rewarding.

When reviewing an exhibition at Beaver Galleries in 1985, I wrote in The Canberra Times that Grant Vaughan was a “master of the understatement”. I considered that Vaughan’s work was the strongest in the exhibition, which included two other artists from northern NSW. I noted at the time that the handles on a cabinet were incorporated into the structure of the doors without intruding on the dramatic surface. The ornamentation was simply the figuring of the timber used in the structure. There were no harsh lines in these pieces of furniture.

In Craft Australia Yearbook 1984, an image of a table by Vaughan highlights the curvaceous lines of his furniture.

The edges of the top are generously rounded, the drawer pulls are carved into the drawer fronts, and fluid lines are carved into the front supports.

That same year he was awarded the Best Exhibit in the Woodcraft ’84 Exhibition held by the Australian Forest Development Institute at Coffs Harbour for a Rosewood and Red Cedar wall cabinet, with delicate carving again forming the door pulls.

In 1987 Vaughan was commissioned to make a matching pair of display cases by the Parliament House Construction Authority, the organisation that was charged with constructing new Parliament House in Canberra, and which engaged many leading Australian artists to create

furnishings and art for the new building. The Authority provided Red Bean and Red Cedar timbers from the Evan Williams Rare Timber Collection it had purchased for use by craftspeople in fabricating furniture. The cases also include bronze-finished metal detailing, glass, and hidden trays for humidity control substances. Vaughan worked closely with the architects and the cases were painstakingly made to high archival standards, to hold precious historical documents. The cases are still on display in the Senate Entry.

Around the end of the 1980s, he began making more sculptural objects and mirrors, and now rarely makes furniture. The mirrors are a popular product and I have seen many examples in Red Cedar and White Beech.

Vaughan makes most of his pieces from Australian Red Cedar or White Beech. For many years he worked in Red Cedar, but now likes the simplicity of pale timbers. Red Cedar is not currently fashionable and therefore less in demand than it has been.

This artist has a singular relationship with the timber he uses. He uses large blocks that have thoroughly dried and draws and makes models of the proposed object in clay to resolve the design. His work requires thick sections of timber from large trees. “Extreme weather events can have an upside for those working in wood,” he told me.

Vaughan has a profound knowledge of the ways in which timber grows and behaves. Like all artists who work in

wood, Vaughan is acutely conscious of the diminishing supplies of quality cabinet-making timbers.

His sources of wood have changed from the time that be began working with this material. White Beech and Rosewood were available through small mills or individuals who had scavenging rights in state forests. Both very resistant to decay, some of the salvaged timber had been lying undisturbed since early settlers had cleared the forests. He sourced Red Cedar, which decays very quickly, from farmers and small mills, though it was difficult to get good quality timber and usually very expensive. Regrowth from early logging is now reaching maturity, and many farmers have held onto what they have as a form of superannuation. What a contrast from the days in which it was plundered for architectural joinery.

Vaughan might be better known for his sculptural forms in the United States than he is in Australia. Karen O’Clery took his work to America for exhibition in the annual Sculptural Objects and Functional Art (SOFA) in the years 2000 to 2002 where it was seen by thousands of American collectors. Del Mano Gallery from Los Angeles showed his work in these prestigious fairs from 2004 to 2006. His work was keenly sought after and was popular amongst the American art appreciation and collecting audiences. In 2000 his work was shown in The Fine Art of Wood exhibition at the Millennium Bohlen Collection, Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, in Michigan and in 2006 in Wood Now, Craft Alliance in St Louis, Missouri and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Other eminent public and private galleries in the United States showed his work, but for

various reasons, the demand waned. There was an active group of collectors, but it was relatively small and tended to follow the directions of the major galleries. As the collectors grew older, they stopped collecting and donated their entire collections to public galleries. The Global Financial Crisis had a major impact on Vaughan, as it did on many Australian artists whose work was collected in the United States. It was a beneficial time, however, for Australian artists and many, including Vaughan, made a name for themselves in the art world in the United States.

Grant Vaughan had collected a group of about 15 pieces and was conscious that he had not had an exhibition in his home town. His approach to the Lismore Regional Gallery was positively received.

His vessels sweep, flow and roll, their finely curled rims drawing the eye back to their delicately carved full bodies.

The earliest work on show is Gesture of Balance, a tall work in White Beech made in 2005. The cylindrical base flares into four finely carved ‘petals’ or ‘leaves’ much like a blossom might. The edges of a large elongated bowl in Red Cedar curve out from the interior of the bowl, reaching towards the full belly of the form. Titled Continuity, the work was made in 2006. Crescent Form in Rosewood is a closed work, again with a rounded belly. The third work dating from this period, Folded Form is in White Beech.

A tall, elegant work, the walls meet rising to four small points at the top. The base gently rises from the centre to the edges. The work is breathtaking in its seeming sim-

plicity and shows Vaughan’s master carving skills.

A pair of Ginkgo Forms (2018) nestle into each other. One in dark, stained White Beech contrasts with the pale surface of the second fan shaped vessel, both of which have a pronounced vein radiating out to the edge of the blade.

A new piece in Red Cedar, Split Form #10, is delicately textured and stained with black acrylic. The red contrasts with the black, matt surface and the carving is a foil to the smooth, polished Cedar. The ‘leaves’ meet at their widest points. The work sits on a small, wooden block. A pair of split forms – both in White Beech, one stained in black stand on a timber base.

Many of Vaughan’s surfaces are satin smooth with finely, precisely finished rims. He is a virtuoso carver, using a minimum of hand tools. Finely carved lines follow the form, and the work is always perfectly resolved.

No one in Australia is creating work that is similar to Vaughan’s. He has broken new ground and no one has followed. David Mac Laren, Director of Bungendore Wood Works, regularly exhibits Vaughan’s work. He believes his architectural background keeps the work simple.

I firmly believe my judgement in 1985 was correct: Grant Vaughan is a master of the understatement.

Text by Meredith Hinchliffe Freelance curator, writer and arts advocate living and working in Canberra

images: this page: Grant Vaughan, Wall sculpture, 2019, White Beech, acrylic, lacquer, 67cm diameter front cover left: Grant Vaughan, Split Form #11, 2019, White Beech, stain, lacquer, 56 x 10cm front cover right: Grant Vaughan, Split Form #12, 2019, White Beech, lacquer, 56 x 10cm inside fold: Grant Vaughan, Split Form #8, 2015, White Beech, lacquer, 42 x 15 x 12cm inside left to right: Grant Vaughan, Ginkgo Forms, 2018, White Beech, stain, lacquer, 7.5 x 23 x 27.5cm Grant Vaughan, Bowl, 2019, White Beech, lacquer, 26 x 48 x 20cm Grant Vaughan, Split Form #10, 2019, Red Cedar, acrylic, lacquer, 32 x 48cm All images courtesy the artist, photographer David Young

Images and text are copyright of the artist, the writer, and Lismore Regional Gallery. All rights reserved. Except under the conditions described in the Australian Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, duplicating or otherwise without the permission of the copyright owners.

Exhibition: 6 July – 8 September 2019 at Lismore Regional Gallery supported by

11 Rural Street, Lismore 2480 NSW | T 61 2 6627 4600 | E art.gallery@lismore.nsw.gov.au | W lismoregallery.org Lismore Regional Gallery

11 Rural Street, Lismore NSW 2480 NSW | T 61 2 6627 4600 | E art.gallery@lismore.nsw.gov.au | lismoregallery.org