Faustas Sadauskas Reconfigured Prototypes
Aug 10 - Sept 1 2024
Faustas Sadauskas
Reconfigured Prototypes is a series of new works marking a return to a study of the human form. A similar foray emerged some decades ago and has now been reacquainted with a renewed vigour. These early experimentations included sculpted portraits and full-bodied torsos carved from local black marble. The result was oneoff free standing statuesque classical forms. The intent was to reappraise figuration as a juxtaposition to totemic abstractions of the past.
What originally began as a meander through formalist ideas utilising the basic geometric volumes of the cylinder, ovoid, sphere and cone, has now been refocused with a perspective on the Caucasian physique and the composition of its masculine and feminine anatomy. The urgency to depict certainty in the world when existing hierarchies, Western history and traditions have increasingly been called into question, has re-ignited interest in the realism of the human figure. The abstract indulgences of the past may have exhausted themselves for the time being, as creative circumstances change.
The current orthodoxy of post-modernism may have run aground and what really matters to those versed in the sculptural process, is authenticity without the
ambiguity of rhetorical narratives. The search for visual clarity through the naturalism of the human form using traditional methods and techniques is possibly a rejection of art produced through digital means. Recreating beauty in the human body requires observation, study, modeling and remains a hands-on virtuous enterprise.
In lieu of available models, a study of archetypal relics ensued with depictions of hands, feet and torso to an enlarged scale. Inspiration has equally been sought through sojourns to the Mediterranean seeing the remnants of the ancient statuary of civilizations from the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Florentines. The breadth of the Occidental past cannot be dismissed. Its inheritance ought not to be done away with or erased from memory. Its art can still resonate today.” However androgynous and indifferent thoughts of the human body have become, our physical being has changed little over the millennia. Environmental and demographic upheavals, new discoveries and advances in technologies, inventive means to alter one’s identity - these have come and gone. Throughout our epoch, humans have essentially remained a composite of skin, flesh and bone. In spite our imperfections and contradictions, a realist depiction of the human figure is a sign that excellence remains much sought after in sculptural depiction.
In an age of the ephemeral, collective impulse or mandated outcome, any endeavour to elevate the natural representation the human body in a permanent sculptural form ought to be welcomed. Finding a voice through an invigorated realist vocabulary when using stone to produce sculptural works takes time and effort. Too few are prepared to embark the sojourner from stone to sculpture, as it is a journey neither closer to its beginning nor to its end… FS
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Julie Collins - Director gallery@djprojects.net
0417324 795
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21 Morce Ave Sorrento, Victoria, Australia
www.andgalleryaustralia.net
& Gallery is part of the djprojects family of art related businesses. www.djprojects.net
1. Walking on the Moon
Marble (Buchan, VIC)
26 X 50 X 50 cm
$ 8,500
Mankind’s footprints are everywhere. They can even be found on the moon. Forever mankind is in search of setting his feet elsewhere. Europeans in the late Fifteenth Century sailed to the east coast of the Americas and announced having found the New World. Whilst in the Twentieth Century, Americans themselves were to become the first to walk upon on even more distant hemisphere. Dinosaurs have left their footprints on shale and sandstone geological beds. We now find that men have left their boot prints some 238,855 miles from Earth.
60 x 25 x 25 cm
$ 8,500
Instead, of analysis for a self-portrait head, I thought of my own hands as an anatomical subject matter and as a means of self-expression. Therein, I began studying my own right hand to create a freestanding sculpture. Not a classical hand, but that of a manual worker with wide palms, muscular fingers and the wrinkles attributed to years of art practise. I have included other indicators of physical use including tendons, veins and callouses.
2. Fat Max Marble (Buchan, Vic)
3. South Yarra Prosthetics
Marble (Buchan, VIC)
64 X 26 X 28 cm
$ 7,700
Whenever I drive through Toorak Road, I often notice women wearing extraordinarily high heels shoes whose design astounds as to how they can ever be worn and how the walking gait of their wearer has been distorted. It is not for comfort that this type of footwear is worn. Instead, it is worn by women for elevation, grace, and exhibition. One wonders, for what do these women suffer. Is it for sexual attraction by protruding the backside and chest when wearing high heels or are these women competing amongst each other for attention.
67 X 78 X 24 cm
$ 15,000
Unlike modern abstraction, the draw of classical Western art tradition resonates to this day. It continues to be resurrected in various epochs and places such as in Florence under the Medici’s, in Versailles under Louis the 14th, Berlin under the Third Reich, Moscow under Soviet Union and Beijing under the Peoples Republic. All these regimes have adopted classical art forms for their own propaganda. However, this faceless model bears no resemblance to the purports of the aforementioned. Though the pose may have originated from a classical remnant, the figures curvature is not idealised.
4. Torso
Marble (Buchan, VIC)
5. Body Armour (male)
Marble (Buchan, Vic)
90 x 42 x 36 cm
$ 22,000
Women’s emancipation in the West from the early 20th Century has, in many circumstances, seen their role in society often overtaking and even replacing that of men. However, the progress achieved by women has come at a cost and is not without consequences. Lacking in the physical prowess of their male counterparts, women today must find means to defend themselves either by use of weaponry or armour. Carved and polished from black marble, the armoury has the same gun metal hue of plate steel, including a spread of reinforcing rivets. The internal profiles follow the contours of the female form with an enlarged fastening in the rear at the waist. The armour appears to have been cast from metal itself.
60 X 29 X 34 cm
$ 7,700
Notwithstanding the conditions of life, we all endure, our desire to find roots within a time or a place are inextricably linked to how we travers the Earth’s surface – by foot. Fate has it, that sometimes you cannot choose where to lay your foundations or which soil to best till. Human feet have traversed nearly every corner of the Earth’s surface. We drive, sail, fly and blast our way into the stratosphere and even into the farthest reaches of the cosmos. However, each of our sojourns begins with a step.
6. Foothold
Marble (Buchan, VIC)
7. Hand to Hand (with discus)
Marble (Buchan, VIC)
53 X 40 X 23 cm
$ 8,500
I have long practised sport. Even today I run, ride and swim many miles throughout the year. As a sculptor there is not a day where I do not perform some physical activity. In my adolescence I set a regional schools discus throwing record. However, I never aspired to achieve a higher level in track and field athletics. Two right hands are engaged in this sculpture. Both have been placed under tension – muscles and veins protruding. There is no give or take between the two combatants as they grapple for possession of an elevated disc. The crossing of the hands stabilises the triangular composition. The sculpture’s cubic base is honed from Western Australian Jarrah timber and complements the corresponding basic forms of the cone shaped arms and the spherical disc.
Marble
Vic)
Base (Pilbara WA)
100 x 40 x 40cm
$12,000
Apart from the mind, the bodies most critical single appendage is the right arm and hand. Without these, to be a sculptor, is inconceivable. Working with just the fingertips on a keyboard is not for a sculptor. Such sedentary occupations are better left to white collars backside polishers - fake artist afraid to get their hands dirty. This work is of a working man’s hand. The oversize forearm is under tension displaying the muscles and veins. The upper arm is enlarged much as a body builders. The deeply carved open wounds and hollowed shoulder are fastened with rivets.
8. Single Handed
(Buchan,
34 X 36 X 24 cm
$ 4,500
The most valuable appendices of the hand are the thumb and forefinger. It has been suggested that human development could not have occurred without the extraordinary dexterity of these two appendages. Unlike other mammals, humans were able to better manipulate materials and objects to fashion tools and equip themselves with the necessities for survival and thereby create culture and civilization.
9. Good to Be No. I
Marble (Buchan, VIC)
10. Hand to Hand
57 X 39 X 27 cm
$ 8,500
In this sculpture, two right hands do battle. Both are at opposites to one another – braced, strained, and never yielding. In this instance, one hand has emerged from the depths, whilst the other is held aloft seeking to wrestle for dominance. Both hands are that of males, as is more often the case when depicting human physical conflict. They are the expression of innate virility. It is men who seek to fight to resolve their differences. It is within their nature to do so.
Marble (Buchan, VIC)
11.
Resurrection
Marble (Buchan, VIC)
114 X 40 X 45 cm
$ 33,000
In lieu of a self-portrait, I have referred to my own hand as a subject and have highlighted its features in minute detail with all its characteristics and defects. Nature is our bodies engineer, evolving and perfecting human appendages to perform specific tasks befitting a peculiar environment. Often sighted as forms of perfection are Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel hands of God giving life to Adam. God giveth …man taketh! This sculpture of a male’s right hand is that of one having arisen from the depths. and in a pose often sighted in the aftermath of human aggression such as in the carnage seen in Eastern Ukraine today.
12. Body Armour (female)
Marble (Buchan, VIC)
96 X 46 X 42 cm
$ 22,000
This armoury is that of classical athletic male torso – muscular, glistening and hardened, not unlike the stone from which it was carved. The variegated coloured hues of the marble are reminiscent of body tattoos. The highlighted muscles and rib cage indicate tension within the body’s form which stands with its weight on the rear back leg whilst taking a step forward with its left leg. This disposition of found in ancient Greek and Roman heroic statuary. In the current epoch of the West loathing its male heroes, there comes a search for new ideals. Even though the post-modernism in art has willingly undermined society, family and faith, the purity of humas nudity still resonates. Though this traditional form may repel some feminists, they are welcome to share in the visual delights of male genitalia.
Faustas Sadauskas C.V.
Born, living and working in Melbourne
EDUCATION
1978 -1980 Diploma of Art and Design, Prahran College of Advanced Education, Melbourne
1984 - 1985 Studied for a Bachelor of Arts, University of Melbour ne
1986 – 1987 University of Vilnius, Lithuania (post graduate)
1987 Vilnius Academy of Art, Lithuania (post graduate)
1989 Diploma of Education, University of Melbourne
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1991 Blackwood Street Gallery, Melbourne
1993 Melbourne Contemporary Art Gallery, Melbourne
1995 Yume Ya Gallery, Melbourne
1996 Pinacotheca Gallery, Melbourne
1998 Pinacotheca Gallery, Melbourne
2000 Span Galleries, Melbourne
2002 Span Galleries, Melbourne
2003 Bayside Corporate Centre “Ten Years On”, Melbourne
2004 Span Galleries “Skulptura”, Melbourne
2009 Karazi Collector “Embodiment”, Melbourne
2017 & Gallery “Intersecting Parallels”, Melbourne
2021 & Gallery “Requisition of Matter”, Sorrento, Victoria
2024 & Gallery “Reconfigured Prototypes”, Sorrento, Victoria
GROUP EXHIBITION SINCE 2014
2014 McClelland Sculpture Survey and Award, Melbourne
2015 Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award, Melbourne
2016 Lorne Sculpture Biennale, Lorne, Victoria
2017 Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition and Award, Yering, Victoria
2018 Lorne Sculpture Biennale, Lorne, Victoria
2019 Heirloom, Lorne, Victoria
2020 Montalto Sculpture Prize, Red Hill, Victoria
2021 Toorak Village Sculpture Exhibition and Prize, Melbourne
2022 Hanging Rock Winery, Newham, Victoria
2023 Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition and Award, Yering, Victoria
2024 Neerim Bower Sculpture Acquisition, Neerim South, Victoria
PRIZES
1994 J. Kazokas Lithuanian Art Prize, Adelaide
1996 J. Kazokas Lithuanian Art Prize, Melbourne
1997 Hugh Ramsay Religious Art Prize, Melbourne
2000 Association of sculptures of Victoria, Melbourne
2005 Toorak Village Festival of Sculpture, Melbourne
COMMISSIONS
1998 ‘Untitled’ Julian Burnside, Melbourne
2001 ‘Trilithons’ City of Moonee Valley Public Sculpture Commission, Moonee Ponds Junction, Melbourne
2004 ’Beacon’ City of Bayside Public Art Commission, Black Rock, Melbourne
2005 ‘Tor’ City of Casey Statement of Acknowledgement Artwork for the Bunarong and Wurundgeri People
2007 ‘Segmentas’ SMA Projects Australia Pty Ltd & City of Port Phillip, Elwood, Melbourne
2010 ‘Arka’ Jalir Pty Ltd & City of Darebin, Northcote, Melbourne
COLLECTIONS
National Australia Bank, Melbourne
M.A.B.
Stanthorpe Art Gallery, Stanthorpe, Qld.
Telsiai Museum of Art, Telsiai, Lithuania
Myer Foundation
Other private collections