“I remember the whole time I worked [at the bronze running and it’s really, really loud, sort of like the tone that echoes through the warehouse. And you’re thing running and Nicholas
bronze foundry], going in and the furnace would be the gates of hell opening. There is a deep, resonant you’re burning a heap of gas in order to keep this it’s red hot inside”
Nicholas Burridge is a Melbourne-based multidisciplinary artist who completed his BA in Fine Arts at Monash University in 2016. He is concerned with the complex relationship between industrialisation and nature, with a particular focus on the earth sciences and the ways manufacturing often mimics planetary forces. This research is recently focussed on the term ‘Terraforming’ focusing attention upon the ways that humans are re-engineering the earth and our current geologic epoch the Anthropocene.
Experimentaiton and material research form a central part of his art practice; this ranges from developing manufacturing processes for lava, to using explosives to form metals and building machines to make/erode sedimentary rock.
Burridge has undertakend artist residencies at Canberra Glassworks (2023), Quarry Pedagogies (2023), Living Museum of the West (2019-20) and Jacks Magazine.
His work has been exhibited across Australia including at the National Art Glass Gallery in 2022 showcase of emerging glass artists, Glass Chrysalis - Glass Art of Promise.
September 2024
In anticipation of Nicholas Burridge’s arrival at Wagga Wagga Art Gallery staff put together questions to dig deeper into the artist’s process and approach to material. After the installation of Terraformed in the National Art Glass Gallery, Gallery Officer, Digital and Programs, Mary Egan, sat down with Burridge to find out more.
Terraformed is Burridge’s first solo show at Wagga Wagga Art Gallery. In 2022, three of his sculptures were featured in Glass Chrysalis - Glass Art of Promise the first in an anticipated triennial event in celebration of new and emerging talent.
Thanks Nic for being here. Could you tell us a bit about your background in art and particularly your history with sculpture?
NB
So, this exhibition is called Terraformed and it’s a reflection on an exhibition that I did four or five years ago called Terraforming, which was the first time I worked with this material, volcanic glass. That exhibition was looking at local ecology. The works were quite delicate because the amount of heat and the sort of equipment required to melt this material and work with, was pretty intense, and I didn’t have access to that.
Over the last five years, I’ve been making a lot more sculpture, getting a bigger workshop, collecting equipment, working at a bronze foundry and learning a lot there. And slowly this material that felt really complex and difficult to work with, and there was a lot of pushback from, I’ve gained more control over more freedom in the way that I can work with it.
[Working with this material] requires lots of energy, and lots of heavy equipment. So this [exhibition] was closing out that chapter of work for a while because I think it requires reflection … the impact and the intensity of trying to make sculptures like this with things that are really heavy and things that require a lot of energy to produce. There’s a contradiction in that work, you’re looking at ecology and appreciating geology but then also exploiting it
ME
Do you find that affects the way that you practice or plan your exhibitions, or your projects that responding to this resource intensive practice?
Yes it’s something that’s on my mind a lot. I have this really intense engagement with the material world. Like most of my day is spent moving things physically around, and breaking things apart and putting them back together and this constant manipulating of the material world around you. That’s a really interesting way to engage and learn about these materials these objects. But it has a really obvious impact I guess. Because you see the change that occurs when something’s moved from one place to another place where something’s been cut in half and now there’s two things and or you know all melted And for a long time, that’s been the point of my art practice is to live in that contradiction of being a part of the world, but also sort of exploiting it which I think inherently we all do, when we’re part of the society. We drive down the roads and we live in the houses and the life that we enjoy requires a lot of modification to the natural environment. I’m interested to sort of step back from that for a little while and see what other perspectives on that same topic can be or [explore] other approaches that don’t have such a big workshop and so many overheads.
ME
Talk to me a bit about the material that you are working with here. What drew you do to it? And how did you come to work with that material?
NB
It’s volcanic glass. I take the same rock as these boulders, which is basalt, a kind of volcanic rock and melt it back into lava as would happen in a volcano, in pouring it out it cools really rapidly and so it turns into a glass. It doesn’t allow this crystalline structure to form that forms in the rock and so you get a glass material instead.
“There’s
these two time scales that are happening simultaneously in this exhibition; deep time and also human time, especially modern industrialized human society.”
Nicholas Burridge
I really liked this process because it utilizes the same set of tools as what I used in the bronze Foundry that I used to work at.
I remember the whole time I worked [at the bronze foundry], going in and the furnace would be running and it’s really, really loud, sort of like the Gates of Hell opening. There is a deep, resonant tone that echoes through the warehouse. And you’re burning a heap of gas in order to keep this thing running and it’s Red hot inside, you know, 1300 to 1400 degrees. You pull out this massive metal and then you pour it, and it’s 200 to 300 kilos of bronze, turned into this sculpture of a figure or whatever we’re making. And that process just seemed so primordial. It looks volcanic, what happens in that workshop. There this molten material getting poured and I thought it was so interesting that process. How humans mimic geology - even something as intense as a volcanic eruption - in manufacturing. And so I was interested to lean into that metaphor about humans making volcanoes and actually use that same material; volcanic rock
ME
There’s another exhibition upstairs at the moment about the technique of glass making, do you see there as being a bit of a conversation between the way that you work and the materials that you use and what’s going on upstairs
NB
I had some really interesting conversations with Michael [Scarrone] about this. The exhibition upstairs is really about glass technique. Glass making has such a strong tradition behind it, and it’s extremely technical, and what I’ve done is very backyard science [I’m] sort of making up processes to work with the material instead of looking at what other people are doing.
I’m adapting a lot of Foundry processes and to do glass making essentially. And so the way that I work when you compare it to what
glass people do, looks really hokey and homemade and it kind of is but I like that conversation because I know a lot of glass artists, I’ve done a residency at the Canberra Glassworks and learned a lot from those people which has informed a lot about this practice, but it’s also nice not having come through that same stream. You work differently because you never learn the rules so you don’t know you’re breaking them, I guess?
Because I’m coming out from a different perspective or using the skills and techniques that I know to try and do similar sorts of things with different outcomes.
ME
Do you find yourself responding very differently when you see your works in a new exhibition space?
NB
Yes. And I think each project is distinct. Which is informed by the space that it’s going to be in, the time and place, what my specific context is and then the community context of who’s going to actually go to the exhibition; they all come into play, when you’re conceiving what the show will look like. So hopefully each time it’s unique and new work.
The scale of this exhibition is really different. It’s quite spacious in the actual Gallery space but the objects that are here are by far the biggest that I’ve made and heaviest and so they’ve got a real presence.
ME How do you describe your art practice or do you describe yourself as an artist?
Good question, I think for me it’s a research-based practice where I come across ideas and then explode those ideas into an exhibition. But the research that I conduct is very hands-on. It’s material experimentations and technical Investigations more than it is research through say like scientific methods.
I think because of that, the type of knowledge that you hold sort of shifts a little bit from conceptual knowledge to haptic knowledge. I feel like I understand a lot of these [processes and materials] through feel and touch. So I have an understanding about how the viscosity of this material through observation and I can explain to you how this material flows when you pour it. But I know it and I’ve got to know it. And I think that’s the way my art practice is heading; haptic ways of understanding and haptic ways of researching materials and the material world and the value shift in that experiential knowledge.
ME
What’s the importance that you place on naming a piece of work?
NB
Yeah, it’s not a favorite activity of mine. There have been a few artworks over the years that I’ve really enjoyed the titling of and I feel like it’s added a lot of context to the work, but often I feel like it narrows, things. [Titling an artwork] prescribes meaning to an object, which I don’t think is necessary. I feel like so much of the time we forget that experiencing art, especially sculpture, is just looking at and being in the presence of this thing. There doesn’t have to be a conceptual understanding although there definitely is allowed to be as well.
I think the titles often prescribe too much to an artwork. The object
should just speak for itself if it’s a successful work. The meaning should be able to gained through just looking at the things. So a lot of my titles are pretty matter of fact.
ME
Sounds like are you are not comfortable with limiting the way that people interact with your artwork or guiding it too much
NB
Yeah 100 per cent. It’s nice for people to just find their own meanings.
ME
So it sounds like this is a sort of conclusion, or you’re stepping back from this body of work for a while. Do you know what you’re looking to explore next?
NB
Well I’m going to Barcelona next to do a master’s degree. The stepping back from this work is partly feeling a need to maybe give it a bit of time and space, but It’s also practical in the sense that these require very specific tools, which I won’t have access to in Barcelona.
It’ll be it’ll be good to just have a bit more time to study and to converse with other people. I’ve spent a lot of time, I don’t know five or six years, of just pretty consistent practice and [that involves] looking at your own thoughts and analyzing your own thoughts and ideas and building this conversation with yourself and your own practice. I’m excited to step back from that and talk to other people about what they’re doing and what they think, then see how that recontextualize what I’m doing.
How do you hope that people will react to this body of work?
NB
It’s a good question I think. It can be hard to think about the audience reaction because I think first and foremost you, in order to make good work you’re heavily thinking about what conversation you’re having and where your interest lies. I think that the best art you make is the art that you feel compelled to make.
The reason I make this sort of work is because it’s a reflection of the experiences that I’ve had in the world that I think have sort of pointed or more interesting.
The big thing that I found quite profound in making this work is an experience of time. Trying to expand our sense of time. Broad enough to encompass geologic time and how incomprehensibly vast, that is and then also, at the same time, looking at the modern world and how quickly we’re transforming like the planet.
There’s these two time scales that are happening simultaneously in this exhibition; deep time and also human time, especially modern industrialized human society. There is conflict between the two. Hopefully there’s enough stillness and enough action once we get that photo up on the wall to embody both of those things.
Opening weekend
Spring Celebration of Glass 14 September 2024
Conversation with Nicholas Burridge and National Art Glass Collection Curator Michael Scarrone.
Learning
Art After School 23 October - 27 November 2024
Educational Tours By arrangement
Exhibitions Team
Dr Lee-Anne Hall, Art Gallery Director
Drew Halyday, Gallery Curator, Exhibitions & Collections
Michael Scarrone, Assistant Curator, National Art Glass Collection
Dylan Smyth, Exhibitions Officer
Zoe Morris, Assistant Curator
Collections Engagement Team
Astrid Reed, Gallery Officer, Learning & Engagement
Mary Egan, Gallery Officer Digital & Programs
Visitor Services Team
Karin Zuge Bruton, Gallery Retail Operations
Helen Robb, Glass Gallery Assistant
And the wider Art Gallery team
This exhibition is supported by Create NSW through NSW Government.
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery
14 September 2024 - 26 January 2025
Morrow Street
Wagga Wagga NSW 2650
W waggaartgallery.com.au
P 02 6926 9660
E gallery@wagga.nsw.gov.au
Wagga Wagga Art Gallery is a cultural facility of Wagga Wagga City Council. Wagga Wagga Art Gallery is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.