McClelland National Small Sculpture Awards 2020 by mcclellandgallery

National Small Sculpture Awards 2020

Fiona Abicare Daniel Agdag Claire Bridge Robert Bridgewater Eugene Carchesio Aaron C. Carter Kris Coad Ewen Coates Narinda Cook Augustine Dallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ava Emma Davies Michael Doolan Brodie Ellis Danny Fotopoulos James Geurts Matt Hinkley Odette Ireland Freya Jobbins Yvonne Kendall Madeline Kidd Alicia King Michael Le Grand

Lucas Maddock John Meade SannĂŠ Mestrom Clare Milledge Clive Murray-White Nell Louise Paramor Sassy Park Marylou Pavlovic Kenny Pittock Kerrie Poliness Steven Rendall Juan David Rodriguez Sandoval Paul Selwood Ema Shin Matthew Sleeth Vipoo Srivilasa Kylie Stillman Cyrus Tang Ronnie van Hout Jan van Schaik Narelle White

McClelland National Small Sculpture Awards 2020 The National Small Sculpture Awards 2020 are an initiative of McClelland’s Director Lisa Byrne to support sculptors during the initial stages of the impact of COVID-19 on the Australian arts and culture sector. With the significant changes to the whole ecosystem of artistic support in Australia ahead, this initiative was designed to directly reach our key artistic community at McClelland – sculptors. We were truly amazed at the response by 320 sculptors, evidence of the huge need for income streams for the artistic community in our specialist field of sculpture. The 44 finalists reflect a strong diversity of approaches to sculpture in the 21st Century. A variety of mediums, influences, career levels and conceptual interests are embodied in the finalist grouping. Our sincere thanks to all sculptors for taking the time and consideration to enter this new initiative at McClelland, and thus make it such a success. On behalf of the three Judges selecting the four Awardees, Jason Smith, Director Geelong Art Gallery, and McClelland Trustees and Artists Lisa Roet and John Young AM, our congratulations to the 44 finalists, and notably the four 2020 awardees, Kerrie Poliness, Cyrus Tang, Matt Hinkley and James Geurts. I encourage art collectors to consider supporting the sculptors listed in this e-catalogue further, through an acquisition of a domestic scale sculpture for their collection. Artwork values and websites for contacting artists and/or their dealer galleries have been collated for this purpose, at this time. It is without doubt that such acquisitions will make a huge difference for artist’s livelihoods over the coming years.

Lisa Byrne, Director 30 July 2020

Fiona ABICARE

Warren Beatty and Desert Eyes 2016/2020 patinated bronze 47.5 x 32.0 x 22.0 cm $7,800 Artist statement Warren Beatty and Desert Eyes engages a dialogue with the subject and form of sculpture in relation to production design of the Hollywood Studio System, operating from 1927–49. The work has a specific relationship to the filmed interior encouraged by the ‘Hollywood Regency’ style, which borrowed from Greek, Roman and Egyptian influences, highlighting their focus and form. More broadly, the work is concerned with the connoisseurship of objects and the language of display, its treatment within and crossover into contemporary art. The action of repeated mark making, derived from an extended in-studio archery performance, finds a form through the act of punctuating a surface, thus defining a field of action in its process. Styled on an Egyptian canteen, the perforated vessel operates as both sculpture and décor. Its conundrums—of being not quite a contained vessel, and its ruptured surface with an inflexible handle yet without a spout—relate to the enigmatic nature and meaning of sculptural forms. Represented by Sarah Scout Presents Photo Christian Capurro

Daniel AGDAG

Primary, Secondary 2020 boxboard 27.0 x 13.0 x 8.0 cm $9,000 Artist statement The act of making is less a process but more a language in which to express my ideas. Primary, Secondary is simultaneously a promise of something to come and the abandonment of the same idea. The sculpture comprises two divergent forms: a timber-clad mass that sits obliquely atop a monolithic brick form. Created from the medium of cardboard, it deliberately speaks of the discord between fragility and strength, opulence and commodity, expendable yet precious.

Primary, Secondary represents an evolution in my practice: exploring purity of form whilst fusing intricate and subtle narrative elements. In these elements, I seek to abandon the idea of a measurable outcome with a work that is familiar and disorientating. Represented by MARS Gallery, Melbourne, and Messums, London

Claire BRIDGE Grenade 2018 glazed stoneware ceramic, nickel-plated steel, rubber, enamel 15.0 x 21.0 x 33.0 cm (variable) $1,900 Artist statement Employing humour and satire, Grenade talks to the serious issues of gendered violence and plays with notions of the objectifying and sexualising term ‘bombshell’ used to connote young, most often blonde women. Referencing the body, breast and nipple forms, this work morphs into a hand grenade, with a chrome pull ring double-entendre that might also be seen as a nipple-piercing. This incendiary object expresses a contained, compacted yet potentially explosive emotional force through combining mundane domestic objects with a ceramic sculptural form, referencing the most dangerous place for women in Australia, the threat of violence in the domestic sphere, which Coronavirus isolation measures have intensified and compounded. Grenade draws on the rhetoric of terrorism and bomb threats, the ‘othering’ of perpetrators, whilst calling attention to the real terrorist threat to women in Australia of assault, injury, illness and death most often perpetrated by a male intimate or family member. Artist website Represented by Gallery One

Robert BRIDGEWATER Kneeling Magdalene 2020 stained wood (Sycamore) 21.0 x 10.0 x 10.0 cm $5,000 Artist statement Kneeling Magdalene is based on the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene as depicted in Roman Catholic imagery such as Donatelloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Penitent Magdalene 1454. Starting from Donatelloâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s depiction of Mary Magdalene as penitent ascetic covered in wild hair after decades spent in remorseful isolation in the wilderness, I have extended her transformation so that the figure is barely discernible under a mass of hair like foliage. In my reimagining she is transformed into a casuarina tree kneeling sorrowfully in the Australian landscape. It is my sense that in Australia we have only just begun to make sense of the scale of the ongoing destruction caused by European settlement of this continent. Through this hybrid tree/person image I hope to engage in a small way with the guilt and sorrow that has to be acknowledged by non-aboriginal Australians and the grief and loss felt by First Nations Australians.

Artist website Represented by Niagara Galleries

Eugene CARCHESIO The No-Between Series 10 2016â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2017 matchboxes, card, foil, acrylic, watercolour, pencil and craft glue 21.0 x 5.0 x 4.0 cm For price information please contact Sutton Gallery Artist statement As the world collapses around us, the meaningful becomes meaningless. Space of heroic proportion is internalised. Our room is now the new world, the everyday things/ the small things/ are beginning to shine in a new light. Light of course is sculpture. There is beauty in the way a dishcloth or a bowl rests in the kitchen. Tea or coffee residue in a cup explains the important emptiness that needs to be there. A house of abstract pearlsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;our new museum.

Represented by Sutton Gallery

Aaron C. CARTER Clock for Clops 2020 paper clay 49.0 x 49.5 x 14.0 cm For price information please contact ReadingRoom Artist statement Clock for Clops is a recent studio work, and a second iteration of a formative ceramic work Clops made for my solo show Free love at ReadingRoom in June 2019. These works evolve out of a distinct dialogue between my interests in drawing, painting and sculpture. Here a sculptural form made of a single material, paper clay, brings articulations of animal, biomorphic forms which hinge, lift and sag into an unspecified whirl. Artist website Represented by ReadingRoom

Kris COAD journeyâ&#x20AC;Ś 2019 porcelain 38.0 x 45.0 x 28.0 cm $2,300 Artist statement My recent work is inspired by the concept of journey. We live in a time of mass migration and movement of people around the world, some by choice and others by extremely dire circumstances. I have been thinking about the moment when and if you had to leave your place, hurriedly taking only what you can carry. What do you take and how do you carry it? My interest is in the moment between gathering what you need and the fleeing, the in-between. Thinking about the stillness of that space; the gap, the breath, the space between, a reflection of what was and thoughts of what is to come. An immeasurable space between two things as they transition into and between one to the other. Artist website

Ewen COATES Accidental Embrace 2020 cast bronze 2.0 x 5.0 x 14.0 cm $1,800 Artist statement Fingerprints: they identify us as creatures in time, markings as evidence of our evolution through history and are a reminder of our own uniqueness as individuals. They could also be reminders of our aloneness. This work came about by chance. In the process of casting two bronze fingertips, I realised that as they appeared on the sprues (the wax tubes used in the lost wax casting process) the arrangement had the potential to be a sculpture in itself. It is uncanny, however, that this sculpture came about quite by accident and furthermore makes reference to human relations. For there exists in life a chaotic order that often asks questions, such as, how much are we in control of our lives, how do we differ from one another and who are the ones that we truly cherish and subsequently embrace? Artist website Photo Christian Capurro

Narinda COOK Discarded 2019 plasticine, acrylic paint 25.0 x 30.0 cm $600 Artist statement Discarded is a small work made from materials sourced from art spaces and workshops, where the materials have served their original purpose and have become waste. Art production is a contributing factor to the waste problems we face today. Repurposing plasticine leftover from art and craft workshops and art production, the sculptures explore concerns of human consumption through consumerism, in particular of art and art making and the contributing factors to plastic waste and climate change. Giving the discarded material a second and sometimes third life, the plasticine sculptures are blended, shaped and melted into new, random forms. These are placed upon bases made in a similar way, using discarded and leftover paints from various sources. Artist website

Augustine DALLâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;AVA Requiem for Nelson 2018 painted wood, stone, granite 47.6 x 45.0 x 16.2 cm $8,500 Artist statement This sculpture is dedicated to a gentle soul and forms part of a continuing body of work. Intimate in scale, often colourful, the sculptures challenge the viewer with their balance/imbalance, grace, harmony and sensuousness. Narrative, lyrical and philosophical imagery plays a strong role alongside the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s innate use of materials. The appreciation for the intrinsic quality of the natural materials used is defined by the workmanship and attention to detail in every element of every sculpture. Natural materials are shaped, manipulated, painted, obscured and stretched to the limit to create each sculpture. Artist website

Emma DAVIES Containment 2014 recycled bird net 40.0 x 40.0 x 20.0 cm $1,200 Artist statement ‘Emma Davies guides us through this virtual age; her objects re-awaken the ghosts of stoneware and glass. Craftsmanship was once proven in the capacity of vessels to hold their contents. By contrast, the appeal of Davies’ objects is their openness. They have an almost platonic simplicity, as though representing metaphysical shapes’ - Kevin Murray My process of discovery and invention is largely experimental. I satisfy my curiosity by working with contemporary materials and using unconventional methods to challenge the possibilities of each creation. My reward is in removing materials from common functionality such as packaging and being able to transform what is intrinsically ugly into something beautiful. Artist website

Michael DOOLAN Bambi,Thumper, Flower 2016 ceramic, resin, auto enamel and wood 44.0 x 40.0 x 22.0 cm $5,400 Artist statement The endurance of transition of the fairy tale proves to be one of the great metaphors of oral and written tradition. From its earliest beginnings, the fairy tale has been subjected to an ongoing form of evolution and renewal known as a ‘heritage of adjustment’ leaving it to seamlessly reflect new variations of culture and creativity. Through the de- and re- construction of Disney’s immediately recognisable images, characters and core motifs and their realisation in three dimensional form, Bambi, Thumper, Flower seeks to contribute to this long established ‘heritage of adjustment’ by proposing new ways of both presenting and decoding the fairy tale.

Represented by Jan Manton Art

Brodie ELLIS MAX Q3 2019 cast bronze and brass 42.0 x 23.0 x 23.0 cm edition of 1 + 1 AP $4,750 Artist statement Max Q3 is a sculpture that amalgamates nature and technology. The artwork is based on the form of a native Australian mistletoe (Amyema miquelii). This is a medicinal plant with many healing properties. The sculpture is referencing our coevolution with plants, and the phenomenon of bio-mimicry in technology. The stem of the plant becomes the massive jet trail of the rocket, seen at the top, as it reaches for the upper atmosphere. Artist website

Danny FOTOPOULOS Release 2019 bronze and granite 25.0 x 23.0 x 15.0 cm $6,600 Artist statement Release is a biomorphic sculpture, which was made with the aim of creating an abstract design that evokes natural forms and parts of the human anatomy. The sculptureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s voluptuous forms are partly reminiscent of the curves found on the female body, and are designed with flowing and buoyant shapes to give the piece a kinetic quality and a sense of liveliness. The sculpture also evokes the look of other natural shapes such as polished pebbles and other surfaces worn out by air and water. The design approach is unplanned and spontaneous whereby rough shapes of clay are haphazardly put together and modelled until a satisfying shape is created. This is then refined in wet clay, allowed to dry and then sanded to achieve the desired finish. Only when finished was the sculpture named. Highly polished bronze was used in this piece due to the dynamic effect created by the reflective surface.

Artist website

James GEURTS Time Zero: International Dateline 2020 bronze 40.0 x 14.0 x 6.0 cm edition of 6 + 2AP $5,500 Artist statement Time Zero: International Dateline is a constructed geopolitical line drawn from the North Pole to the South Pole positioned at 180Â° longitude, demarcating one global calendar day from the next and cast in ancient technological material of bronze. This gesture connects a pre-modern age with the system of time zones that instituted the industrial era. The schism in the two surface planes, like tectonic forces, emphasises the continual movement of this line by political and economic tensions. Artist website Represented by GAGPROJECTS/Greenaway Art Gallery, Adelaide and Berlin, and Contemporary Art Society, London

Matt HINKLEY Untitled 2014 polyurethane resin, pigment and wire 10.2 x 1.2 x 1.3 cm $1,500 Artist statement Hidden amongst dilapidated architecture and embedded within its deteriorating walls, this work was first exhibited in the vast spaces of Cockatoo Island for the Sydney Biennale. Inverting the monumentality laced throughout the history of sculpture, hidden in plain sight the work awaited discovery by the more curious visitor. Originally conceived as an assemblage of different found materialsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;all of which were gathered from the footpaths and banks surrounding the Maribyrnong River on the way to the studioâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the work took on a new abstract form through a process of casting and re-colouring. In this way, the armature of the work, which was then cast into the assemblage itself, became an integral part of the composition. It created an unpredictable effect through its chance bonding and interaction with materials, and in doing so continued a practice-long engagement with questions of scale, perception and decipherability. Or rather, that which actually manages to meet the eye. Artist website Represented by Sutton Gallery

Odette IRELAND Counterbalance no. 26 2020 ceramic, copper, stainless steel and wood 39.0 x 46.0 x 18.0 cm $1,750 Artist statement I create ceramic and mixed media sculptures that are suspended, free standing and works that hang on the wall. The works reflect and communicate my responses to the world around me, and my relationship to it. Trees are powerful symbols of perseverance, hope, strength and wisdom. With this work I have deconstructed the tree to its three basic elements - the trunk, leaf and pod, the essence of a single tree. My sculptures are carefully crafted and assembled from ceramic, wood and metal. The unconventional combinations of materials, together with the use of movement result in works that invite us to think about the world around usâ&#x20AC;Ś My aim is to capture the boldness of spirit that is unique to Australia and reflect the beauty and fragility found in our everchanging environment. Artist website Represented by Curatorial+Co.

Freya JOBBINS Fingerpointing Series 2019 plastic assemblage 50.0 x 50.0 x 6.0 cm $2,500 Artist statement Using plastic man-made objects—commonplace inanimate objects seen day to day in homes around the world in toy boxes—these replica toy guns like an AR-15, a 9mm handgun and a revolver allow children to ‘play’ at killing each other. Re-using them as base for my fleshy assemblages I am responding to the High School shooting in Florida where the assault rifle was used to kill 17 students and injure a further 17. Funnily enough this weapon is rated as the most popular weapon in the US and it hangs in the homes of millions of Americans. The handgun and revolver come in second and third. Fingers of blame were pointed in the wrong direction, of course a repeat pattern of denial occurred, but we know it took more than one finger to pull that trigger. Artist website

Yvonne KENDALL Light Form – Coral Reef 2015 glass light fixture and fabric 27.0 x 41.0 x 31.0 cm $3,500 Artist statement Inspired by natural forms, Light Form – Coral Reef is a combination of glass and fabric, which integrates transparent and solid shapes. The cylindrical structures in red curtain fabric grow up and stand out from the glass fixture, from which they extend their form like stepping-stones. They are reminiscent of pillar corals projecting upwards under the ocean. Or like the basalt columns along the coast of Iceland or Northern Ireland, or Tasmania’s rugged coast, jutting up from an icy sea. The piece also evokes a sense of wonder. Looking down into the glass one sees a repeated egg-shaped pattern in the filaments. Like looking into a microscope at the early stages of life. Once again, there is an allusion to water and the eggs of marine animals hiding amongst the corals. The columns curve softly around the glass protecting them. Artist website Represented by Niagara Galleries Photo Karl Scheuring, Reutlingen

Madeline KIDD Spring Garden 2020 23.0 x 30.0 x 23.0 cm found wooden objects, marbles, billiard ball, acrylic and enamel $1,650 Artist statement Inspired by production design and pop art, Madeline Kidd’s artworks tend to a playful, heightened quality, as though they belong to a glamorous character in a play or film—a style she refers to as ‘costume sculpture’. The stylistic tropes of interior decoration (such as art objects, furniture, indoor plants and floral and fruit arrangements) are juxtaposed with abstract components and found objects. The effect is at once familiar and exotic. In Spring Garden found wooden objects have been arranged and re-painted, culminating in a glossy, formal composition that becomes a vehicle to explore colour and form. Central gardenesque motifs combine with spheres, leaves and flowers. Suitable for domestic display in its current form, this sculpture is a maquette for a larger scale iteration that would work for a public space. Artist website Represented by Daine Singer

Alicia KING The Future of Nature 2018 resin, neodymium, iron 45.0 x 35.0 x 45.0 cm $2,400 Artist statement Since 2007, Oxford has been removing biological words from its Junior Oxford Dictionary in favour of faddish technological terms. Although language inevitably changes over time, this trend suggests a disconnection with nature as we know it; what once seemed familiar is being made strange. Without language to contextualise our natural world, we confront a purely experiential relationship with nature, offering the potential to recover a sense of the phenomenal and sublimeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a raw, intuitive space. In this scenario, without language to give context to nature, we make meaning from material physicality alone.

Artist website

Michael LE GRAND Bollard 2016 painted steel 30.0 x 45.0 x 33.0 cm $12,000 Artist statement This sculpture evokes the heavy but fluid nature of mooring ropes for large shipping, their relaxed form belying the inner strength within. Here, the gentle softness of curved steel contradicting the true nature of hard metal. It also has a casual, languid feel as it, like a reclining figure, wraps itself around the vertical element. Artist website

Lucas MADDOCK New Hypothetical Continents (Maquette) 2013–2019 3D printed thermoplastic polyurethane, enamel 7.5 x 26.0 x 20.0 cm edition of 5 $800 Artist statement Exhibited in the McClelland Sculpture Survey 2014, Hypothetical Continents, for which this was the working maquette, draws on John Glover’s exaggerated landscapes and Lewis Spence’s fictional maps of Atlantis to create a new fictional topography. The digital maquette was created by 3D scanning a working model and was used as a guide to build the McClelland light installation. The armature, which is a near exact replica of the maquette, was exhibited as a new site-specific installation in the Montalto Sculpture Prize in 2019. Spence’s map was also referenced by land artist Robert Smithson in the development of his spectacularly unsuccessful glimmering island of broken glass in the Georgia Strait in 1970. The New Hypothetical Continents works link the perils of colonial endeavour to those of utopian pursuit and unbridled ambition. Artist website

John MEADE Silvia 2014 cast aluminium, auto enamel, horsehair, linen thread, rubber 50.0 x 48.0 x 18.0 cm $11,000 Artist statement Silvia is one of five sculptures that featured in a parade of small figurative sculptures making their way down a fashion catwalk in Autumn 2014, at Sutton Gallery, Melbourne. Each sculpture has a woman’s name indicating its individuality— expressed as surface colour, material quality, and small accessories. Silvia is a ponytail of horsehair capped by a folded lilac party lantern with a rubber stop. It hangs by a chain of linen thread and is anchored to a green structure, secured at the back by a small bronze ring. The lean of the structure establishes a triangular relationship to the ground; it both frames and suspends the ponytail feature. ‘Meade thinks of wig as a verb, and in this sense is linguistically aligned with queer. His landmark refiguring of abstraction comes about by having a wig—in whatever size, shape or colour—signify the absence of the human figure.’ – Philip Brophy, Memo Review Represented by Sutton Gallery Courtesy the artist and Sutton Gallery Photo Andrew Curtis

Sanné MESTROM Self Portrait (SNOOP) 2018 GRC (glass reinforced concrete) and bronze 40.0 x 45.0 x 15.0 cm $3,200 Artist statement ‘Mestrom’s most recent sculptures represent extensions of the body, like props that compensate for the body’s shortcomings. They allow the artist to jump and float and move through space as she might in a dream. They are the wings to her Nike of Samothrace, that give flight to her ambitions of mobility. In their unboundedness, the works seem to flit amongst the ruins of modernism, alighting on various forms that we might identify with other periods and other sculptures, but Mestrom is increasingly writing her own language of forms; each shape here is another hieroglyph of this ever-expanding universe of symbols.’ - Simon Gregg, from the catalogue essay ‘Corrections’ 2018. Self Portrait (Snoop) offers us a disembodied ear, floating much like the bodiless, all-seeing disembodied eye of the camera. Yet, while we can always shut our eyes off from the world, the same cannot be said for our ears, ever-listening and allpervasive, even when much is lost in the translation between what is said and what is understood. Artist website Represented by Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney and Singapore

Clare MILLEDGE Tree-Philosophers 2020 found branch, beeswax, recycled silk, seeds, pigment, Dianela caerulea 50.0 x 45.0 x 45.0 cm $9,500 Artist statement Tree-Philosophers is backgrounded by my previous work combining fieldwork survey methodologies with process-based installation. The materials used in the sculpture have been gathered primarily through fieldwork, partially with ecologists after recent bushfires. I have previously used adapted ecological survey techniques to create works that act as abstract and ritualised narratives. This small sculpture is part of a wider body of work I have begun developing that privileges listening. Tree-Philosophers transmits and receives. The human form becomes the receptacle for insect communications. A collection of delicate wax heads, modelled on the same character with an elongated twig-like nose, perch atop branches, minimally arranged with suggestions of tattered clothing fluttering. The wax characters smile quietly, eyes closed, skin in a state of dilapidation, stained lightly with plant inks and glowing with a slightly sickly, yet radiant, alien iridescence. At each ear an insect perches, transmitting energy into our fleshy receivers. We listen. Artist website Represented by STATION Gallery

Clive MURRAY-WHITE Assisted Suiseki: No 3 2019 Chillagoe marble and timber 40.0 x 15.5 x 24.0 cm $3,500 Artist statement A 26,000,000-year-old piece of marbleised North Queensland coral reef, encrusted naturally with crystals, formed the foundation of this work. It is essentially an object belonging to the original ‘readymade’ tradition of over 1000 years ago rather than Marcel Duchamp’s more recent version. I then subjected the rock to a number of processes/assistances aimed at making it a sculpture full of surprises. Represented by Charles Nodrum Gallery

NELL Happy Bucket 2017 galvanised steel 32.0 x 33.0 x 28.5 cm For price information please contact STATION Gallery Artist statement On the face of it, Happy Bucket is a very simple artwork—an old metal bucket with a smiley face cut into it. Yet, if you think about the object for just a moment you realise that an upside-down bucket with holes in it is utterly useless. So what is this bucket saying? The bucket is us… a porous vessel unable to hold onto things, a place where joy and sorrow coexist and where things don’t turn out as planned. And somehow in spite of it all, we have the capacity to keep smiling. Isn’t that something! Artist website Represented by STATION Gallery

Louise PARAMOR The backpacker and the performance artist 2020 plastic, glass presentation case 22.0 x 16.0 x 8.0 cm $7,700 Artist statement The backpacker and the performance artist is one of thirteen sculptures from the series entitled Parallel Universe. In the series I have combined miniature human figures with my assemblage work to create tiny worlds that offer colourful and whimsical architectural propositions. Sourced from an architectural supply shop, the human models embody a number of different archetypes, and it is this arbitrary representation that I find compelling and in keeping with my methodology of chance findings. The people are colourful and detailed, matching the palette of my plastic assemblages, the marrying of the two being a process of intuition. The use of figurative representation to anchor and animate my sculptural work is a new development, stemming from my work in public sculpture, where scale relating to human size is key. Artist website Represented by Finkelstein Gallery

Sassy PARK Men’s Doubles (Tennis) 2020 ceramic, cement 37.0 x 31.0 x 16.0 cm Work not for sale Artist statement Sassy Park is a recent Masters graduate in ceramics from the National Art School in Sydney. Her work plays with the accepted uses of domestic ceramics and genres, including vessels and figurative works. Ideas of fragility and vulnerability are expanded to comment on personal experiences and contemporary culture. Through scale and humour, Park’s figures reflect on questions of representation. Her figures painted with slips and underglazes express an empathy that draws the viewer in, to look more closely and engage with the object. Her work is informed by a deep appreciation of ceramics and art history including the ancient Greek Tanagra figures and Staffordshire figures from 19th Century England, both of which inform Men’s Doubles (Tennis) 2020. The rapport between these two characters poised in their tennis whites, is caught as they pause eternally in the solidity of clay. Artist website Represented by Robin Gibson Gallery

Marylou PAVLOVIC Rosebud 2011 flowers, resin, acrylic, paint, wood 50.0 x 25.0 x 25.0 cm $5,000 Artist statement This work was created after a trip to Bali. Influenced by large, decorative floral water bowls in the Balinese public environment, featuring flowers suspended in water, the formal sculptural property of suspension became important. A whole trajectory of abstract forms based on this simple idea of suspended flowers was created (2010â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2018). In Bali, black, white and grey fabric (kain poleng) is sacred for Balinese Hindus, and placed anywhere where negative entities may reside. I noted that kain poleng was often seen in the same public places as floral offerings. It became logical to combine organic floral forms in my work with the grid form: the formal device of juxtaposition is also often employed in Western art forms. Rosebud employs global contemporary art devices but is influenced by aspects of Balinese craft. The work represents cultural synthesis, and Bali becomes a catalyst for resolving problems in my own culture, for example, the relevance of beauty in contemporary art. Artist website

Kenny PITTOCK Time has never felt so crumbly 2020 acrylic on hand-sculpted earthenware ceramic 8.0 x 37.0 cm x 26.0 cm $1,200 Artist statement In 2020 as we cleared our calendars time started to crumble away. Generally speaking, my work responds to themes of nostalgia and celebrating the mundane everyday, and often this means my work is inspired by things from the past, however the current pandemic has really grounded me in the present. I think the work Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m making now has become much more political, while still emphasising hope and maintaining a sense of humour and playfulness. Artist website

Kerrie POLINESS Colour Figure 1 2020 balsa wood, spray enamel, dress-maker’s pins, silver tape and coloured plastic 46.0 x 30.0 x 20.0 cm For price information please contact Anna Schwartz Gallery Artist statement Colour Figure 1 adapts a system I’ve developed and used to make asymmetrical, geometric, linear wall drawings (since 1994), to make a three-dimensional drawing as a small sculpture. The diagonal lines of this drawing support and frame a series of semi-transparent coloured panels that overlap and interact with each other, mixing colour and light in various ways depending on the direction from which the sculpture is viewed and approached. The drawing construction casts shadows of coloured light both outside and within its boundaries, depending on the environment in which it is placed and how it is lit. Colour Figure 1 is a model for a large-scale, public artwork or a set for activities and events that is designed, to be entered, to be played with and used for self-directed experiments with colour and light, by shifting position and perspective and introducing other objects. Artist website Represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery © Kerrie Poliness Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery

Steven RENDALL Order and Disorder 2020 plastic, metal, screws, acrylic gel medium 33.0 x 16.0 17.0 cm $4,500 Artist statement This sculpture is part of a large series of works that rely on scavenging and improvisation with limited resources of time, space and materials. The technique might be described as kitchen table sculpture—the work is made at home, specifically in the kitchen, whilst cooking (well, heating edible stuff up), washing up (I’m good at that) and looking after the children (or, more realistically, arguing with them about screen time). The occupation of part of the kitchen table by these sculptures has been a fascinating way to engage my children in art practices—they respond to these sculptures whereas they are disconnected from my more studio based painting practice... the studio-based VHS feedback-drenched noise video experiments leave them completely cold. The sculpture is an experiment in possibilities—can I splice the domestic environment with my interest in the genres of horror and science fiction. Represented by Niagara Galleries

Juan David RODRIGUEZ SANDOVAL Preserved Limb No.004 2020 eucalyptus log, sphagnum moss, expanding polyurethane foam, eucalyptus leaves, latex-free gloves, Gunai Kurnai soil, gumnuts, pinus negra leaves 48.0 x 15.0 x 38.0 cm $1,600 Artist statement These live works have been made with the intention to be up-cycled/repurposed by being given a new life. The ligaments of the tree have developed anthropomorphic qualities, a fusion of different plant species, tree species, and organic matter. Most of these ligaments are often associated with vital parts of the trees that are often a product of the logging industry, which aim to become preserved through this Frankenstein-esque gesture. Consequently, the final rendition becomes somewhat cared for and maintained, to be studied and re-imagined. Additionally, the fusion-like nature of the work reflects upon the biological and geographical mutation of man-made deconstruction and mutation in the natural world. Artist website

Paul SELWOOD Sifnos Church 2016 painted steel 34.5 x 50.0 x 27.0 cm $16,500 Artist statement Sculpture for me is a language of form, a relationship of things, parts, or shapes in space. The relationship of parts is the important thing, it forms the syntax of the language. The space becomes a positive element, it is the medium in which the forms are suspended. The subject of the sculpture in this case is the church. The object of the sculpture is the physical form. When all the parts are in harmonic tune the subject and object become unified. This sculpture is one of a series done after I returned to the Greek Cyclades islands in 2013. From Sifnos you can see Paros where I was carving the legendary Lit Nitus marble in my student days. In Sifnos I watched as a Greek naval ship delivered an important ikon to a church there. The wonderful thing about Greece is the presence of the old myths in contemporary life. My sculpture Sifnos Church is cut and folded out from a drawing on a single rectangle of steel. Artist website Represented by Charles Nodrum Gallery

Ema SHIN The Hearts of Absent Women 2020 cotton, wool, linen, glass, kozo paper, lokta paper (7 parts) 50.0 x 42.0 x 48.0 cm $6,800 Artist statement This work The Hearts of Absent Women is dedicated to women who have not been recognised in the past. I was born in Japan and grew up in a traditional Korean Family. My grandfather kept a treasured family tree book for 35 generations, but it only featured the men; my mother and grandmother were absent from the pages. In my art I have always tried to celebrate women and their historical handcrafts. These sculptural hearts are made from embroidery, hand-woven tapestry and papier-mĂ˘chĂŠ to recognise and celebrate the silent behind-the-scenes domestic duties of women and represent not only her emotions but serve as offerings or amulets for her protection. Artist website

Matthew SLEETH Genesis 2011 stereolithography, epoxy resin, OLED screen, Linux computer, custom software, LED, concrete, glue 15.0 x 25.0 x 40.0 cm For price information please contact Kronenberg Mais Wright Artist statement Genesis is a sculpture that takes as its subject the process of its own creation. The work features an abstracted drive-in cinema made of concrete and stereolithographic elements including a sign, hotdog truck and illuminated car with two people inside. The screen plays a looped video of itself being built by a 3D printer: from an empty platform through to the finished object that appears in the sculpture. The drive-in cinema is associated with the infrastructure of entertainment and Genesis references this history of spectacle to draw attention to the divide between the private and usually hidden act of creation, and the public display of an artwork. Genesis makes visible one of Modernismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s key ideas, that the medium is always partly the subject of an artwork. In this case, the subject of the work is literally the narrative of its creation. Artist website Represented by Kronenberg Mais Wright

Vipoo SRIVILASA Soap Opera 2018 scented bar soap 22.0 x 12.0 x 12.0 cm $1,200 Artist statement The piece captures a sense of self-doubt, fear of failure and criticism—a drama I deal with every day… trying to make beautiful and happy artworks. Artist website Represented by Edwina Corlette Gallery

Kylie STILLMAN Blobitecture 2017 hand-cut paperback books and timber base 20.0 x 23.0 x 14.0 cm $4,400 Artist statement Well-known for her poetic carved book sculptures, Kylie Stillman uses a wide variety of piercing and cutting implements to create captivating negative spaces in objects. Nature in stasis, meta-language and graphic symbols are intricately carved into the objectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface to depict growth, regeneration and change. Stillmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s inventive works are inspired by both art and artisanal traditions to transform and elevate everyday materials. Often taking inspiration from the subjects of the books themselves, Stillman encapsulates their meaning and, through her own alchemical processes, transforms them so that the viewer may bring their own interpretations and experiences to them. Artist website Represented by Utopia Art Sydney Courtesy of the artist and Utopia Art Sydney

Cyrus TANG The Modern World Encyclopaedia Vol 2 2017 cremated book ashes, book cover and acrylic case 40.0 x 40.0 x 45.0 cm $5,400 Artist statement An encyclopaedia is a compendium of general knowledge about the world. It is like a dictionary. There was a time when encyclopaedias became mass-produced in the West, and most households had some form of an encyclopaedia, especially for children to learn from. When I was a child in Hong Kong however I didn’t have one of these, hence my interest in them now. The Modern World Encyclopaedia I used in this work was published in 1936, a few years after the Great Depression and a few years before WW2 started. To have a book entitled ‘The Modern World’ suggests to me a success of the modern world, but the modern world was about to go up in flames. Nobody perceived another world would come. To me, burning is not disappearing or destroying. It is a transformation of material, it is a convergence of past and present. The knowledge about this modern world disappears in the fire that burns away this book, and it brings to the heart of us the fact that people didn’t learn from history. Artist website Represented by ARC ONE Gallery

Ronnie VAN HOUT Hand with Rock 2018 painted cast polyurethane, colouring pencil, aluminium, plywood 29.0 x 21.0 x 21.0 cm For price information please contact STATION Gallery Artist statement Hand with Rock is part study, and part work on its own. I was interested in casting my hands holding objects for larger figurative sculptures. Holding objects, is a way we extend our body, and many of the objects we hold are tools, but also hands are the parts of our body that are used as tools. They are useful for communication, counting and pointing things out. I thought the idea of holding a rock as a very simple gesture. A rock is such a basic form of material that it can be used in many different ways. It is a sculptural/building material, but is also potentially a destructive object thrown in anger or as protest. I wanted Hand with Rock to appear as a relic in a museum. As a fragment broken from a larger piece, rough and raw like a paw.

Represented by STATION Gallery

Jan VAN SCHAIK Lost Tablet, Ryou-Un Maru 2020 reconfigured Lego 23.4 x 19.2 x 3.0 cm $2,750 Artist statement Lost Tablet, Ryou-Un Maru is one in a series of 34 works that express a tension between a universally recognisable childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s toy and architectural semiotics. Each of the 34 tablets in the series has the same dimension, a formally dynamic face, and a sheer face. The architecture of the sheer face is bound by the tension between the profile of the tablet, and the surface qualities of the found blocks, each with the markings of its own history. The architecture of the dynamic face is bound by the tension between the expectation of what a Lego composition would usually prescribe, and the language of the collective architectural unconscious. The strange resonant familiarity of the tablets oscillates between the platonic, almost primal, recognisability of Lego, and the architectural grammar of the city caves of Matera, the churches of Borromini, the buttresses of gothic cathedrals, and the blue ceilings of Shah Mosque of Isfahan. Artist website

Narelle WHITE Silver tongue, red veil 2020 ceramic 8.0 x 24.0 x 7.0 cm For price information please contact the artist directly through the link below Artist statement My small sculptures are an experimental blend of Den Haag beach sands in porcelain, which I have hand-pressed into emergent, organic forms and fired to resemble well-weathered stone. Created in residence at the European Ceramic Workcentre in Oisterwijk, these animist figures are indelibly imbued with the mineral properties of their origins. Their bodily folds recall the fecundity of nomadic art icon the Venus of Willendhorf. Made small and of the earth, they speak to a spirited relationship between people and place. Artist website

McClelland National Small Sculpture Awards 2020 McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery 390 McClelland Drive Langwarrin Victoria 3910 Australia www.mcclellandgallery.com August 2020 Copyright ÂŠ McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery 2020. All works of art copyright ÂŠ the artist. All images courtesy the artists and their galleries unless otherwise stated, and reproduced with permission. Every effort has been made to correctly credit artists, galleries and photographers in this catalogue. If an error or ommission has occurred please contact info@mcclellandgallery.com. McClelland would like to thank all the artists and galleries who submitted entries for these Awards. Prices listed are current at the time of publication and may be subject to change. For all purchase enquiries please contact the galleries or artists listed. Funding for the Awards was made possible through the generosity of the Elisabeth Murdoch Sculpture Fund and a Private Donor. McClelland is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, and acknowledges the generous ongoing contributions of Frankston City Council, the Packer Family Foundation, Crown Resorts Foundation, Aidan J Graham Trust, Plenary Group, IAS Fine Art Logistics, Haymes Paint, Cub Cadet and MTD Products Australia, and Elgee Park Wines.

Cover image: Norma Redpath, Paessagio Cariatide 1980, bronze (edition of 8, cast in 2018), 19.6 x 32.5 x 5.4 cm. Collection of McClelland. Purchased through the Elisabeth Murdoch Sculpture Fund. Copyright the Estate of Norma Redpath. Courtesy Charles Nodrum Gallery.