7 minute read
SCOTT WADE Dirty Car Art
About the artwork
When does an unsightly dirty car become a thing of beauty? With Dirty Car Art, Wade seeks to transform not only the physical thing, but also the perception of the viewer. The artist wants to take the ordinary, the distasteful, and show its potential to delight. A mobile canvas, a temporary creation in the earth from which our forms spring and to which they return, helps him to understand he’s just passing through this reality, and to enjoy its moments of beauty along the way.
About the Artist
Born in 1959, the son of a U.S. Air Force officer and housewife, Scott Wade spent most of his childhood at the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, CO., where his father taught history and later became the faculty executive. His great childhood included lessons in art, piano and drums, and he played drums in band starting in 5th grade. His father was an amateur cartoonist and would make colouring books for the neighbourhood kids at Christmas-time.
Music and art always held great interest and Wade continued to draw, paint, and play in the band when he moved to Texas in 1973. In high school, Wade won several honours for his drumming, and was awarded the John Philip Sousa Band Award. He was also active in Boy Scouts, eventually becoming an Eagle Scout, and joined his first rock band during his senior year.
Wade attended Texas State University on a partial music scholarship, and then after a year decided he didn’t want to be a band director and transferred majors to explore his other big passion, art. He graduated with a BFA in Commercial Art and spent the next decade playing in various local bands, working parttime jobs, illustrating and designing for various clients, composing and performing music in the university theatre department, and generally exploring his creativity. Today, in addition to Dirty Car Art, Scott holds a full-time position as a Senior GUI Designer for Airstrip, in San Antonio, and still manages to play a few music gigs each month.
Image: Scott Wade
Recreating Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earing
Jan HYNES
Fenced
180 x 300 x 180 cm
Fence palings, timber supports, metal fastenings, found birdcage, feathers, felt
About the Work
Fences can protect what is inside from outside dangers, or they can confine and control what is within.
About the Artist
Townsville's Jan Hynes is better known for painting but enjoys making 3D artwork and has participated in Strand Ephemera since its inception in 2001.
Banana Splits
Yellow Peril - the shape of things to come
100 x 700 x 400 cm
Plastic coated aluminium tubing, plastic coated copper wire, recycled plastic cable casings, fixings
About the Work
An artifact of Queensland culture, Yellow Peril takes the big banana and skins it. Made from recycled cabling of the past, transformed into the public art of today.
About the Artist
Bernadette Boscacci and Sharon Kitching (aka Banana Splits) are interdisciplinary artists (a pair of local banana-benders) with an interest in personal and cultural narratives that reflect their shared history in Townsville and Sydney. Bernadette works across mediums on multiple collaborative and solo projects. Sharon Kitching is a Sydney-based painter whose work is largely figurative. Both like to make work that’s edgy and thought-provoking. In 2017 they are collaborating on works for Strand Ephemera and Bread and Circuses (an exhibition at Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Sydney in August).
Waterproof closed cell foam, exterior solar powered lights
About the Work
This work encourages us to look at urban sprawl and the direct impact it has on our environment. Weeds are the second biggest threat to our natural environment after land clearing. Although they are attractive, bright and colourful, and larger than life, Urban Blooms represents a thriving non-endemic species which can potentially cause damage to our delicate ecosystem. The work is intended to evoke questions such as; how quickly can they grow? Will they take over our shorelines and prevent native species from taking hold? Will they poison our soils?
About the Artist
India Collins is a contemporary artist and designer, based in far north Queensland. Born in Canada, Collins studied Fine Arts and Art History in Montreal, Quebec. Her work is heavily informed by a strong design aesthetic, creating immersive environments and new spatial platforms. Collins' foray into textiles, painting and design sees a strong interchange between colour, texture and playful narratives.
Cameron RUSHTON
Giant Pacific Octopus
145 x 120 x 120 cm Steel
About the Work
The artwork is a tiny example of the North Pacific Giant Octopus. One of the most intelligent animals in the ocean. Which grow up to 20 feet (6 meters) in their five year lifespan.
About the Artist
Cameron Rushton is a Townsville-based steel artist that specialises in realistic animals.
Pamela Lee BRENNER & Johannes MULJANA
Re-evolution
240 x 400 x 200 cm
Recycled and reclaimed materials: bicycle wheels, rope, PET bottles, PVC pipes, corflute, wood
About the Work
This work has been created to discuss contemporary environmental and energy generation issues. It is a play on the word revolution, suggesting revolving parts, social movement for change.
About the Artists
For over 10 years, Pamela Lee Brenner and Johannes Muljana have worked to design and build installations and experimental artworks combining recycled materials and technology.
John HEARD
They
are Biting Well on Money Today
150 x 150 x 300 cm
Stainless steel
About the Work
This work is nature getting back at humanity exploiting our greed to benefit the angler fish.
About the Artist
John Heard is an artist based in Mt Fox, west of Ingham on 400 acres. Born in Nowra NSW he moved to northern NSW at the age of 17. He has been a resident in the Hinchinbrook district for 23 years and although interested in and experimenting with artworks for a long time, has only recently started to exhibit some of his work. He gathers ideas and look at things, and then comes up with his own spin on the piece he is creating. When he becomes involved with a piece it "tells me what it needs and usually that works ok". His artwork is not intended to be a replica of an actual creature or thing but rather an interpretation of all the elements of those sort of creatures or things, whether real or imagined.
Pimlico State High School
Legacy of Lanterns
180 x 300 x 300 cm
Glazed ceramics, discarded plastic, found objects
About the Work
Legacy of Lanterns is a collaborative sculpture that expresses the fragility of coastal environments, through the use of discarded materials and by making a coastal crustacean the focal point. The oversized soldier crab made of collected plastic and beach findings is surrounded by spheres; mimicking the sand spheres left by burrowing soldier crabs. Each sphere is carved and pierced to emit light as a series of beach lanterns. The lanterns are made by the senior students of Pimlico State High School. Incidentally, the Pimlico School community has collected and saved over 6kgs of plastic from landfill or waterways. Students, like soldier crabs, have worked together to make a difference.
About the Artist
Senior creative art students of Pimlico State High School draw on their combined artistic experience, along with the knowledge and guidance of experienced art teachers.
Sue TILLEY
The Gatherings
Various
Polypropylene packing tape
About the Work
Like animals, humans are drawn to others of their kind, for protection, for comfort, to socialise, and to share. This instinct is the root of 'community', and essential for well-being. Being social animals, we enjoy our public spaces, alongside others, together yet apart. The pleasure found in a shared smile, a nod hello or simply co-existing is immeasurable. These figures are casts of real Townsville people, enjoying our Strand and our glorious weather.
About the Artist
With a passion for travel, culture, community and the environment, Sue Tilley's art generally focuses on these themes. She works in a diverse range of techniques and media including welded steel, assemblage of recycled and natural materials, kiln formed glass and ceramics. The materials in each work relates to the concept of the piece. Tilley's work happily resides in collections in Scotland, Wales, USA and Australia. A milestone is a piece being installed at the Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame in June 2012, one of 13 public artworks across Queensland.
Lance SEADON
Billy Carts "Cruzin' The Strand"
60 x 100 x 240 cm each
Steel (new and old), bronze, brass, copper, hardwood, rope
About the Work
Growing up in the 50's - no computers! Billy Carts ruled; cobbled together from whatever could be found. Building these 55 years later is just as exciting as it was then. This is a whimsical look at the Billy Cart era of the artist's childhood, assembled from a shed full of "junk" and other interesting bits! These six unique Billy Carts were inspired by "Mad Max", "Steampunk" and a touch of "Hot Rod" too.
About the Artist
Lance Seadon has exhibited in Strand Ephemera, Swell, Brunswick Nature Sculpture Walk and 2 Bamboo Society of Australia sculpture contests. He received 2 first prizes and 1 People's Choice.
Jane HAWKINS with Rhonda PAYNE & Sally MUNNS
Sand Ephemera
10 x 805 x 690 cm
Polystyrene balls, glue, river sand, steel wire, cable ties, shadecloth, tin
About the Work
A small patch of Sand Ephemera seen at low tide is evidence of a tiny crab's daily ritual. Here, re-invented larger than life and out of context, it is transformed.
About the Artists
Jane Hawkins, Rhonda Payne and Sally Munns each have approximately 25 years' experience teaching visual arts in the secondary and tertiary education sectors. This is the trio's first collaborative installation.
Christopher TROTTER Sonic Bay Beacon
110 x 110 x 150 cm
Recycled objects
About the Work
This floating beacon was once used as a listening device for the detection of underwater marine sounds created by sea life such as dugong and dolphins. It was also quite well documented that these beacons could pick up distant calls of the humpback whales during their migration through the Coral Sea. Sonic beacons were part of a healthy waterways management program used along our coastline up until the late 1960’s.
About the Artist
Since 1990, Christopher Trotter has worked with discarded objects to produce innovative and engaging artworks. His pieces can be both high impact and delicately engaging.
Harriet GEATER-JOHNSON Transient Cabinet
150 x 150 x 60 cm
Slip cast and hand built ceramics, copper, acrylic, wood
About the Work
Hundreds of animals in Australia are at risk of extinction due to loss of habitat, introduced species and environmental change. In this piece flora and fauna, which are both vulnerable and critically endangered, have their last forray. The museum cabinet will serve to show future generations animals which are no longer in existence.
About the Artist
Harriet Geater-Johnson is an art teacher from London, UK, who has been in Australia for 10 years. She is now working as an art teacher in Townsville. Originally she completed a degree in printmaking, but now prefers to work with sculptural forms.
