About me

"As a sculptor and sustainability advocate, my work has been influenced by my interest in biological forms, coupled with the natural world and science, resulting in an eclectic and unique style."
about me
I’m influenced by contemporary issues and interested in questioning everyday patterns by provoking alternative forms of discourse.

Art, through all its various creative expressions, can act as a powerful facilitator for social change.

Many early pieces were driven by a desire to create figurative forms by exploring how they express emotion and relationships. These were a reflection on my early professional life in biology and environmental science. Those student years undertaking animal dissections also lead to a deep interest in human anatomy. This interest in the human form is as much about the body’s mechanical perfection as the stories they evoke of the private inner world intersecting with the outer more public realm.

Communication and facilitation have been key components of my career and now it has entered a new phase of deeper expression through my art practice. The declining health of the environment and its relevance to all aspects of sustaining life has given me sense of urgency.

More recent works utilise discarded materials to create intimate and tranquil sculptural experiences that encourage curiosity and optimism. The pieces aim to provide a subtle environmental message about reuse, combining used materials that would otherwise be discarded with natural fallen branches and/or seedpods. They also attempt to create a connection so that a viewer would want to keep and nurture these pieces.

I’ve also become more interested in the intersection of art, creativity and science. While artists and scientists approach their professions in different ways and from different perspectives, they’re both fundamentally in search of understanding. I believe that when working together they open up new ways of seeing, experiencing and interpreting the world around us.

The Creative Catalyst seeks to support individuals and organisations to explore their creativity and discover new approaches to problem solving that ultimately I hope will lead to positive social change. (www.thecreativecatalyst.com.au)
education

2012
Contemporary Art, (Community Access Program) Victorian College of the Arts

2010-11
Graduate Certificate in Visual Arts, Victorian College of the Arts

Study Tour: VCA Visual Arts Tour,Documenta, Kassel Germany

2008-09
Studio Art, Victorian College of the Arts

2007
Studio Art, Latrobe College of Art and Design
awards
2013
Best use of non-traditional materials
Jindivick Sculpture Exhibition, Melbourne

2011
Lighthouse Art Award, Winner of Youngblood category, Melbourne
exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
2014
Project Reclaim & Ponder the Hoodie
St Kilda Town Hall Gallery

Project Reclaim, Upper West Side Melbourne

Group Exhibitions
2018
From Nature, Gasworks Port Melbourne

2017
From Nature, Gasworks Port Melbourne

Beautiful Darkness, CERES Brunswick

2016
From Nature, Gasworks Port Melbourne

2015
From Nature, Gasworks Port Melbourne

Toyota Community Spirit Gallery,Sculpture14,
Port Melbourne

2014
Upper West Side, Melbourne

25Artists@WTC, World Trade Centre, Melbourne

Jindivick Sculpture Exhibition, Melbourne

Lorne Sculpture Biennale, Sculpturscape

GAIA, West Beach Bathers Pavillion, St Kilda

The Entry, Brunswick Arts Space

2013
Bah Humbug, D11@Docklands, Melbourne

Toyota Community Foundation, Sculpture Exhibition Port Melbourne

25Artists@WTC, World Trade Centre, Melbourne

Liveable and Sustainable, Federation Square, Melbourne

The Second Collective, D11@Docklands, Melbourne

Creative Sustain-Ability, St Kilda Gallery Port Phillip

Jindivick Sculpture Exhibition, Melbourne
Influences
The following are artists, resources, websites, stories etc that have provided me with inspiration and ideas.
Kenneth Armitage
Image:
People in the Wind NGV

I’m really drawn to his bronze work and the pieces that are optimistic about human companionship and reflect a warm vision of humanity.

Shown here is 'People in a wind' 1950 bronze NGV
Louise Bourgeois
Image: Spiders, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2018

There are so many aspects to Louise that i love.... that she was still working until her mid 90's, that she was innovative and spanned installation art, expressionism and surrealism and that she used materials in such a profound way.
John Davies
Image:
The Presence Exhibition NGV 2010

One of the first sculptors I came across that used an awareness of landscape, nature and ecology in his works in a subtle message about our impacts on, and relationship with, the environment. I really loved his early work with wood and the organic connection he made to the fragile and beautiful environments he was inspired by.
Antony Gormley
Image:
'Inside Australia' 2006 NGV

I think originally it was the way he explored the human body and its connection to space at large, in a big way with large scale impressive installations. But then you see how he engages and transforms the subjective experience into a collective and active engagement.

He's also not afraid and uses his own body, intimately, to express the space human beings inhabit.

John Davies
Image: MCA exhibition 2013

Anish Kapoor is public art at its finest, big bold monumental artworks with strong saturated colours. Whether its the experimentation with materials and forms, the vibrant colours or the distortion of space...his pieces are engaging.

At at the recent MCA exhibition (March 2013), there was a diversity of surfaces. Some with a deep unreflective pigment, others a translucent resin and others contrasted with super-reflective surfaces. The pieces were full of contrasts, a fascination with darkness and light, presence and absence, being and non-being, place and non-place and the solid and the intangible.
Ron Mueck
Image: NGV Exhibition

Ron's use of materials and techniques and knowing he refined his skills making puppets is enough for me. And..then you experience his work, ordinary lives and simple bodies and absolutely amazing.
Christo and Jeanne Claude
Very dramatic public works with installations often wrapped around existing structures, across both land and sea. They are big, bold, organic and use the topography of the structures in a beautiful fluid way...and the fabric is central and essential.
http://www.christojeanneclaude.net
Andy Goldsworthy
Im draw very much to his use of materials ice, leaves, mud, snow, seeds etc...and the way he uses his hands and found tools to prepare the arrangements. I think Im more draw to the impermanance of many of his pieces and thoughts of decay and life. I also like that the site specific nature of his works means he can be seen in both the urban and more rural and natural settings.

Photography plays a crucial role in his art due to its often ephemeral and transient state.
According to Goldsworthy, “Each work grows, stays, decays – integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its heights, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit.”
http://www.goldsworthy.cc.gla.ac.uk/
Ranjani Shettar
I came across Ranjani at the NGV exhibition, Dewdrops and Sunshine.

She has this amazing craftsmanship to her work and she uses all sorts of materials , wax, steel, wood, muslin etc and engineers these works across large spaces. While its very organic (materials help) its also very ordered and geometric and implies movement.

/uploads/1/8/0/9/18091393/ngv_ranjani_shettar_sample.pdf
Michelangelo di Lodovica Buonarroti Simoni
I remember first seeing Michelangelo's David when I was 5 years old in Florence...the impression has lasted. But unlike me he actually performed human dissections in his early teens. A master sculptor of the human form creating anatomically perfect sculptures.

"David is a symbol... as champion of a small, free community against the tyranny of greater powers. It is an ideal of courage and youthful confidence in a righteous cause, embodied in a figure carefully adjusted to the naturalistic view. The extraordinary power of assimilating study and skill as a workman have made it possible for the young sculptor to carry out together the conflicting impression of a young man, not fully grown, with head and hands too large, yet of a heroic form, and an energy fired by a great duty.

http://www.renaissance-spell.com/Michelangelo-Sculptures.html

The action... is momentary. The hand holds the piece of wood on which the sling is hung, easily, not grasping, but gently feeling for the proper hold. The sling runs round the back and its centre, filled with stone, is held with the left hand poised on the left shoulder, ready to be loosed. This movement, then, allows the expression of the face to be an important part of the whole story.

The statue is too well known to say more; it is one of the great statues; the knowledge implied and the execution are both extraordinary, and yet one feels, somehow, that the youth of the artist is embodied in the youth of the statue. "

http://www.renaissance-spell.com/Michelangelo-Sculptures.html
World Expo Brisbane 1988
Yep I was young and my first trip interstate with friends. I loved the whole experience but it was the sculpture park and the plaster humans scattered across the site that I was most in awe of. It hooked me and I still have the catalogue. Loads of Kenneth Armitage and a Lynn Chadwick plus many that I now understand to be renowned artists.

education

awards

exhibitions

Influences

The following are artists, resources, websites, stories etc that have provided me with inspiration and ideas.

Kenneth Armitage

Louise Bourgeois

John Davies

Antony Gormley

John Davies

Ron Mueck

Christo and Jeanne Claude

Andy Goldsworthy

Ranjani Shettar

Michelangelo di Lodovica Buonarroti Simoni

World Expo Brisbane 1988