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Zine by Bronwyn Brady, 2015 St. George School of Fine Art ADVANCED DIPLOMA
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Table of Contents………………………………………...……….2 Manifesto…………………………………………………..………3 Artist Statement……………………………………………..…….4 Poem by Pierre Albert Birot…………………............................7 What is Shelter?……………………………………………..…....8 Henry Tilbrook.…………………………………………….….....10 Physical Shelters Natural……………………………………………..……..12 o Nests…………………………………………..….14 o Shells…………………………………………..…17 Man-Made………………………………………………..20 Emotional Shelters……………………………………………....25 Artists Profiles Fiona Hall………………………………………………...29 Eva Hesse………………………………………………..32 Mikala Dwyer………………………………………….....35 Brie Ruais………………………………………………...38 Jonathan Delafield Cook…………………………….....41 Hossein Valamanesh…………………………………...44 3
I am an artist developing a body of work in response to the theme of Shelter. This zine seeks to explore and understand the relationship between Shelter and Self. Everybody needs some kind of shelter. On the most basic level, we all need some kind of physical structure to protect us from the elements. On another level we also need non-tangible emotional shelters, achieved through healthy connections between us & our community, friends, family, and environment. I believe this is something that supports us and maintains our sense of equilibrium, belonging, and identity.
Bronwyn Brady, works in progress, muslin, thread on timber, 2015
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I like to work across disciplines, using the most suitable materials in relation to my concept or subject matter. I enjoy drawing with charcoal and graphite, and also painting with oils. I am also using materials involved in sculpture including resin, terracotta clay, plaster and paper. Most recently I have working on a small scale with all of these mediums, making numerous works revolving around the concept of shelter. I enjoy translating complex feelings and thoughts into more simplified and tangible forms, both 2-Dimensional and 3Dimensional. Currently I am developing a body of work covering the theme of shelters, where I have been examining the role of shelters in relation to the individual. This includes physical shelters and the emotional shelter provided through relationships between friends, family, community, spiritual connection, and sense of belonging. I have been inspired by countless artists, most notably works by Fiona Hall, Mikala Dwyer, Jonathan Delafield Cook, and Eva Hesse. Prior to this body of work, I explored feelings of disassociation within the community caused by racism, being an ‘Other’, leading to loss of identity and shared sense of place.
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Bronwyn Brady, works in progress, casting plaster 2015
Bronwyn Brady, Nest Study, graphite on paper, 2015
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Bronwyn Brady, work in progress, muslin, 2015 I enjoy taking complex ideas of identity and belonging, transforming these into more simplified forms through sculpture, drawing, and painting. I am currently working with wrapping and folding textiles, clay and paper to communicate a sense of physical and emotional shelter.
Bronwyn Brady, terracotta clay objects, 2015
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A poem by Pierre Albert Birot
Les A.musements Naturels, 1945 At the door of the house who will come knocking? An open door, we enter A closed door, a den The world pulse beats beyond my door.
Bronwyn Brady, oil on board 2015
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ʃɛltə noun 1. 1. a place giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger. "huts like this are used as a shelter during the winter"
2. 2. a shielded or safe condition; protection. "he hung back in the shelter of a rock"
Synonyms: protection, shield, cover, a roof, screen, shade; safety, security,defence, refuge, sanctuary, asylum, safe keeping, safeguarding "the plants provide shelter for animals" Google Definition: https://www.google.com.au/webhp?sourceid=chromeinstant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=define%20shelter
A shelter protects you from the elements, a barrier between you and the outside world. It is somewhere to store your possessions and keep them safe. In this zine I have divided shelter into two categories; physical shelters and emotional shelters. Physical shelters are tangible structures that provide protection from outside forces, whereas emotional shelters are intangible factors that ensure a safe sense of belonging and place.
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Photograph Title: A Wet Encampment on Lake Frome, S.E. 1900, Gelatin silver photograph Image and quotes: http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/noye/Tilbrook/Tilb1900.htm
This image was taken on 26th March, 1900. Henry Tilbrook wrote these notes regarding the photograph: ‘The rain and gale shows the tent bellying out with the guy ropw stiff as an iron bar. That photograph was taken under great difficulties. Fallen timber lay all over the ground [and it] was a matter of time and patience in the face of the storm... The day was exceedingly dull, too, and the storm was raging the whole time, In the picture everything appears gloomy all around. A wild duck is hanging from the tent post; the tent is nearly bursting outwards, and is showing one big slit; dark fallen timber is in the foreground; and it shows one of the most uncomfortable camps one could wish for. Yet with favourable weather it would have been one of the best. I value the picture also as showing some of the discomforts we had to endure.’ I really love this photograph. You get a great sense of the wildness of nature, with only the thin canvas tent providing protection. I like how Tilbrook refers to the camp as being so uncomfortable, but then imagine being stuck in that storm with no form of shelter at all!
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NATURAL SHELTERS ‘Physically, the creature endowed with a sense of refuge, huddles up to itself, takes to cover, hides away, lies snug, concealed. If we were to look among the wealth of our vocabulary for verbs that express the dynamics of retreat, we should find images based on animal movements of withdrawal, movements that are engraved in our muscles.� The Poetics of Space, by Gaston Bachelard Published 1958 Presses Universitaires de France, page 91
Shelters abound in the natural world. Animals inherently find, design and create shelters for themselves. For example:
Bird Nests
Shells
Caves
Dens
Rocks
Trees
Bark
Leaves
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Kath Fries, Divest, 2014-2015, beeswax and ash, dimensions variable Image: Kath Fries’ website - http://www.kathfries.com/
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“[A nest is] a house built by and for the body, taking form from the inside, like a shell, in an intimacy that works physically. The form of the nest is commanded by the inside… the instrument that prescribes a circular form for the nest is nothing else but the body of the bird. It is by constantly turning round and round and pressing back the walls on every side, that succeeds in forming this circle.” The Poetics of Space, by Gaston Bachelard Published 1958 Presses Universitaires de France, (page 101)
Anne Morrison, Nest, 2012, Acrylic and Watercolour on paper, 102 x 154cm Image: http://www.bayoffiresartprize.com.au/anne-morrison1.html
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Vincent van Gogh, wrote to his brother ‘The cottage, with its thatched roof, made me think of the wren’s nest’.
Vincent Van Gogh, Still Life with Three Birds’ Nests, Oil on canvas, 1885 Image: http://www.vangoghgallery.com/catalog/Painting/559/Still-Life-with-Three-Birds'Nests.html
I find bird nests to be fascinating and beautiful. The diversity of styles and designs across species is simply amazing! The nest is moulded into shape by the body of the bird itself, and I feel that it becomes almost an extension of the bird. The idea of a nest is also so comforting, especially when you consider the fragility of eggs and frailty of chicks being sheltered and protected by a nest made from twigs, sticks, grass etc.
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Ann Van Hoey, Group of Vessels, earthenware, 2012 Image: https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/decorative-objects/vasesvessels/group-vessels-ann-van-hoey/id-f_643170/
Poem by Jean Caubere: Le nid tiede (The warm nest)
The warm, calm nest In which a bird sings Recalls the songs, the charms, The pure threshold Of my old home.
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“at the gloomy time of year, when 'Vinter's death holds earth in its grip, the snail plunges deep into the ground, shuts itself up inside its shell, as though in a coffin, by means of a strong, limestone epiphragm, until Spring comes and sings Easter Hallelujahs over its grave . . . Then it tears down its wall and reappears in broad daylight, full of life." (Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard pg 116, Published 1958 Presses Universitaires de France)
"Snails build a little house which they carry about with them," so "they are always at home in whatever country they travel." (ibid, pg. 121)
Kate McGwire, Shroud, Mixed media with mallard feathers and quills in antique dome, 2013, 35 x 35 x 30 cm Image: http://www.katemccgwire.com/index.php?pid=40&sid=2013
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Gillian Lavery, Pranayama no. 5, thread on cloth (no date given) Image: http://www.gillianlavery.com/projects/pranayama/
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Bronwyn Brady, Drawings, 2015, watercolour and pencil n paper
Bronwyn Brady, Nest, 2015, resin and oil paint
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Houses
Rooms
Corners
Clothing
Institutions
Tents
Blankets, Fabric, Towels
Religious Buildings
Clare Healey and Sean Cordeiro, The plastic menagerie (2006) 300.0 x 230.0 x 195.0 pine vitrines and inflatable animals Image: http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/302/Claire_Healy_and_Sean_Cordeiro/ 1520/48191/
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Richard Sweeney, Surface (maquette), paper and adhesive, 2007 Image: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/richardsweeney/sets/72157601996229613/
Natalie Rosin, Medium Density, stoneware, porcelain, 2014 Image: http://www.willoughby.nsw.gov.au/community/Facilities/Willoughby-Incinerator/willoughbyincinerator-art-space/2015-exhibition-calendar/intersections-the-art-of-architects-gallery/
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Liz Stops, Floored Construction, Recycled timber, porcelain, steel, insects, 2015
“In her installation, Floored Construction and Dislodged Framework, [Stops] dwells on what constitutes notions of ‘home’, defined as shelter, a sense of belonging, or habitat. Locally sourced recycled timber has links with white settlement of the area. Porcelain inclusions respond to farming practices and everyday concerns such as water storage.” – Liz Stops Artist Statement from group show ‘Sustainable Aesthetics’, Gallery Lane Cove 25/03/15 – 25/04/2015
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Previous page: Michelle Cawthorn, Memory Tent, bedsheets, doona covers, faux Amanda Ryan, Multi Colour Folded Form No. 4 , 2014 Fabric, wadding, eyelets & stand offs 45 x 53 cm
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adjective: sheltered (of a place) protected from bad weather. "the plants need a shady, sheltered spot in the garden" protected from difficulties or unpleasant realities. "I was a mathematics don at Cambridge living a rather sheltered life"
Definition: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=sheltered&ie=utf-8&oe=utf8&gws_rd=cr&ei=OhB4VcPkIuPHmwWei4CoAw
Emotional shelters are intangible factors that shelter us from vulnerability, negativity, loneliness, and other such things. They are a combination of factors including: - Sense of place and belonging
-Supportive base of family and
within the community
friends
- Spiritual fulfilment and
- Sense of self worth and self
contentment
appreciation
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Liam Benson, Me & You, 2015 Liam Benson, Refuge, 2015 glass seed and bugle beads, sequins, cotton, glass seeds and bugle beads, sequins, organza, bamboo embroidery hoop, crystal cotton, organza, bamboo embroidery hoop, diamantes crystal diamantes 18.5 cm diameter Variable dimensions Images: http://www.artereal.com.au/home/liam-benson/more-works
Helen Frankenthaler, Canyon, 1965, acrylic on canvas, 44 x 52in Image:http://www.phillipscollection.org/research/american_art/artwork/FrankenthalerCanyon.htm
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Paul Jenkins, Phenomena Kwan Yin 1969 acrylic on canvas 88 x 119 inches 223.5 x 302.5 cm The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Paul Jenkins, Phenomena Blue Held Over 1975 acrylic on canvas 75 x 118 inches 190.5 x 300 cm Milwaukee Art Museum. Gift of Jane Bradley Pettit. Images: http://www.pauljenkins.net/works/pain.html
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Bronwyn Brady, Sophie, 2014 14x21in
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Fiona Hall is an Australian contemporary artist, mainly working with the photography and sculpture disciplines. She is currently representing Australia in the 2015 Venice Biennale. Fiona Hall was born in 1953 and grew up in Oatley, Sydney. She enrolled in a Diploma of Painting but with the support of her painting teacher she also pursued photography. By her early 20’s she was a professional photographer, with her work being exhibited, collected and published. Hall continued to branch out into other areas of the arts including painting, installation, sculpture, garden design and video. In her works, Hall addresses and explores a wide range of issues including the relationship between nature and culture. I have long been an admirer of Fiona Hall’s artworks, particularly her sculptural pieces, I have included her work Tender (over page) which is a series of over 100 bird nests made from US currency, intending to explore the relationship between the natural world and human system of trade. I love the structure of the objects and their reflection of the diversity amongst bird nests. They have a pseudoscientific feel, particularly the way they have been displayed in glass cases. http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/collection/contemporary_australian_art/fiona_h all
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Fiona Hall, Green Ant Nest, 2006, etching, aquatint, black ink with chine collĂŠ on ivory wove paper 30/40, 33.0 x 24.6 cm platemark; 48.7 x 39.3 cm sheet Image: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/196.2007.3/
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Fiona Hall, Tender (detail), US Dollars, wire and vitrines, 2003-2005 Image: http://www.createx.com.au/artist-of-substance-fiona-hall/
Fiona Hall, Tender, US Dollars, wire and vitrines, 2003-2005 Image: http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/17/Fiona_Hall/388/37746/
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Eva Hesse is an artist of Jewish heritage born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1936. Her family then relocated to America in 1939 due to the rise of Nazism. In 1959 she began studying at Yale University School of Art in New Haven, CT, under Josef Albers. Her individual style first appeared in drawings shown in the early 1960s. Eva Hesse is one of the most renowned American artists to practice in the years immediately following The Abstract Expressionists. She was originally schooled in American abstract painting and commercial design practice and had pursued a career in commercial textile design in New York City. While practicing as an expressionist painter, she began experimenting with industrial and everyday materials, such as rope, string, wire, rubber, and fiberglass. She began using the simplest materials to suggest a wide range of associations. I admire the minimalism of Eva Hesse’s sculptures and find them to be extremely engaging, provoking and comforting at the same time. The materials are often industrial in nature but convey a sense of the organic and spontaneous. I love her use of fabric. http://www.theartstory.org/artist-hesse-eva.htm http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/eva-hesse-1280
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Eva Hesse, Aught, 1968 Latex, canvas, polyethylene sheeting, rope and unidentified materials, metal grommets Installation variable, 4 units Images: 1968http://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/34/eva-hesse/images-clips/53/
Eva Hesse, Repetition Nineteen III, 1968, Fiberglass, polyester resin, Installation variable, 19 units, Museum of Modern Art, New York Image: http://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/34/eva-hesse/images-clips/54/
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Eva Hesse, Untitled (Rope Piece), 1970 Image http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/12/arts/design/12hess.html?pagewanted=all
Eva Hesse, No title, papier-cache, 1969 Images: http://artobserved.com/2010/04/go-see-new-york-eva-hesse-at-hauser-wirththrough-april-24-2010/
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Mikala Dwyer has been creating sculpture and installation-based artworks for over 20 years. The objects she produces are often draped, wrapped, and ‘precariously erected’. They play with space and the layering, overlapping of materials, Her work Untitled 2014 (page 34) was the winner of Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize at the National Art School. I personally really like this artwork, it is so fragile. I feel as if I could step inside it like a giant bubble, it has a comforting and benevolent aura.
“I have been making ‘empty sculptures’ in various versions over the last ten years. They came from thinking about architecture, cubby houses, biospheres and caves. This particular plastic has heat mouldable properties which allowed me to create the forms I was looking for. In a sense they are musings on the traditional notions of sculpture; form, volume, weight, gravity, physicality, and threedimensionality. Here however they might owe their being to painting in their transparency, colour, their looking-throughness as well as their walking aroundness (sculpture). They are, in a sense, also drawings. An idea of a hollow work containing a void (perhaps where content should be located) is misleading. A void is forever being filled with our imaginings and projections. So the hollow work is really full, almost solid.”
Mikala Dwyer – March 2015
http://www.redlands.nsw.edu.au/go/redlands-community/redlands-konicaminolta-art-prize/2015-catalogue
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Mikala Dwyer, Untitled, 2014, plastic, air, 180 x 100 x 100 cm Image: http://artguide.com.au/articles-page/show/page-5/
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Mikala Dwyer, Swamp Geometry, installation view, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne, 2008 Image: http://www.mikaladwyer.com/work/category/swamp-geometry
Mikala Dwyer, Untitled 1995, Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with the assistance of stART, MCAYoung Patrons, 1997, organza fabric, pins
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Brie Ruais is an American sculptor; she was born in 1982 in Southern California, and is now living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Brie Ruais works primarily with clay. Her sculptures are less about making objects but rather embedding experiences and traces of action into the clay. She uses her body to mould and manipulate the clay by pushing at it with her knees, kicking, stomping, pulling, spreading, kneading, folding, ramming, scraping, digging, and even shoving it across the floor or up the walls. The results are abstract shapes that hint at the process of her actions, but have a certain beauty and fineness. In this way of using clay she completely reinvents her approach to ceramics. Her works have a real presence; while they are abstract I can fully appreciate the realism of the marks left by her process.
“For me, the work [is] about what happens when one’s body is overcome by a physically demanding process...We are forced to remember that making something sometimes requires the laborious use of the body.” http://bombmagazine.org/article/10110/brie-ruais https://www.artsy.net/artist/brie-ruais http://brieruais.com/information/information.html
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Brie Ruais with Area Whole, 300lbs. Also pictured: How to Make a Vessel From the Inside, 132lbs (left) and Two Fold, 132lbs. (right) Image: http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/1053146/brie-ruais-gets-physical-withher-material
Brie Ruais, Dugout Vessels (Gun Metal, Platinum, and Shino), 130lbs each, 2015 Image: http://brieruais.com/
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Brie Ruais, Ways of Finding Center (Fold Over), 2014, Pigmented and glazed ceramic, hardware, 54.6 Ă— 35.6 Ă— 10.2 cm Image: http://brieruais.com/
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Jonathan Delafield Cook is a UK-based artist with a background in architecture, initially training as an architectural draughtsman in Japan. His charcoal drawings are extremely accurate and realistic, with beautiful texture and softness. As such, his architectural training becomes quite obvious! The subject matter of his drawings is usually taken from nature and he has created a large series of drawings on sheep, cattle, birds, nests, bark, and marine life. Delafield Cook’s drawing process involves a combination of observation, reference to museum specimens, and photographic references. In the artist’s words his objective is ‘to elevate the drawing, which has traditionally been seen as the preparatory study to the primary master work.’ Delafield Cook’s nest drawings really stand out to me. He has really captured a sense of warmth and comfort and trueness to the subject matter. It feels as though he has completed the drawings with much care and deliberation. The large scale of each drawing is also fantastic, with the larger-than-life nests inviting the viewer in, http://www.jonathandelafieldcook.co.uk/ http://www.olsenirwin.com/pages/artists_details2.php?artist_id=429 http://olsenirwin.com/blog/category/artists/jonathan-delafield-cook/
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Jonathan Delafield Cook, Bohemian Waxwing, I, II,III, mixed media on paper, 65 x 49 x 3cm. Image: http://www.jonathandelafieldcook.co.uk/
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Jonathan Delafiled Cook, Golden Babbler Nest 02, Charcoal on paper,88 x 107cm. Image: http://www.jonathandelafieldcook.co.uk/
Jonathan Delafield Cook, Megabalanus coccopoma, 2013, Charcoal on paper, 67 x 50.9 cm. Image: http://www.jonathandelafieldcook.co.uk/
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Hossein Valamanesh, Embrace, 2002, palm leaf. 260 x 64 x 15cm. Image: http://www.greenaway.com.au/Artists/Hossein-Valamanesh/2002Works/embrace.jpg
Hossein Valamanesh’s art has a sense of poetic wonder, in which natural materials and references to cultural history and personal memory intertwine as a metaphor for human experience. An engagement with a sense of place informs much of his practice, but one which is as much about metaphysics as observable fact. Valamanesh was born in Iran in 1949 and grew up in the remote town of Khash near the Pakistan border and later trained as an artist in Tehran before immigrating to Australia in 1973. His work
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often draws on the Australian landscape as well as on Iranian culture, in particular Iranian poetry and the Sufi mystical tradition. - Quoted from Art Gallery of New South Wales http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/427.2009/
Pyramid with Light – Outside/Inside, 1980, wood, clay, straw, jute, rope, ceramic oil burner, each 121 x 167 x 167 cm. Art Gallery of South Australia
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Birch Song Cycle, 1991, scorched pine, birch bark, speakers and sound, dimension variable. Collection of the artist. All images from book Hossein Valamanesh: Out of Nothingness, by Mary Knights, Ian
North - Wakefield Press, 2011 : https://books.google.com.au/books?isbn=1743050054
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Louise Bourgeois, Fabric drawing, 2005 http://charlmalan.tumblr.com/post/108650527064/lush-retina-louise-bourgeoisfabric-drawing
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Find Me: instagram.com/bronniebrady www.bronwynbrady.com bronwynbrady.tumblr.com
Bronwyn Brady, Clay Shelters, 2015, terracotta clay
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