Success!

Just found out I won the Meadowbank College Association Art Award Sculpture Prize awarded at the opening last Thursday evening.

Unfortunately, after a hard day in ceramics at Hornsby TAFE, I was too tired to make the trek to Meadowbank and decided to give it a miss:(

Anyway here is my entry

 

"The Thinker", Apologies to Rodin!

 

I'll be visiting him in the See Street Gallery on Monday when I will be at Meadowbank to take a picture in situ:)

"On yer bike, Clover!"

My personal protest at the proliferation of bicycle lanes in the CBD, which rarely seem to see a cyclist, and serve only to further the traffic chaos that we have come to expect in downtown Sydney.

This was my entry into the Mosman In Situ  exhibition which, needless to say, got rejected. It seems that my blog is about the only place where I will get to display any of my works with any political content!

My latest politically incorrect sculpture!

 

Get it?

 

I am not claiming that I came up with the idea myself. The original was this cartoon by Glen Le Lievre.

 

 

 

Many thanks to Glen for the idea and giving me permission to immortalise it in sculpture!

Out of my comfort zone - casting in concrete!

My latest work, a cubist caricature of John Lennon, heavily influenced by the recent Francis Bacon exhibition , especially around the eyes!

 

Unusually for me, this was made initially in clay but then cast in concrete using a plaster waste mould as part of our first project in sculpture at Meadowbank TAFE.

While I am quite happy with the result, in retrospect, the amount of effort that went into making the mould just to cast one piece seems totally disproportionate and I wish I had taken the extra step (and cost!) and made a reusable mould in silicon rubber.

I am also slightly disappointed in the weight of the finished piece. One of my reasons for exploring mediums other than fired ceramic, is weight, clay being very heavy, it restricts the maximum size I feel happy handling. Even though this piece only has a concrete "skin", filled  with expandable foam to reduce the weight, it is still very heavy! If I had made a reusable mould, I could have experimented with using lightweight materials such as the expandable foam alone.

On exhibition

My Frog Doorman on exhibition in the Sculpture Society's Towers Exhibition.

 

My Hung Parliament was deemed inappropriate for this location since  it gets visited by politicians and we have to safeguard their fragile egos!

 

 

 

R.I.P.

Well, while photographing the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle, which featured in my exhibition, with  a view to entering them in another exhibition this year, the Gryphon fell over and bits broke off. I could have stuck them back on but I always find mended pieces so depressing and, anyway I was so annoyed with myself that, shall I just say he is now in multiple pieces in the rubbish bin.

So here is the last appearance of the Gryphon on these pages.....

 

Maybe it is just as well that I am investigating more durable materials! I am currently in the process of casting a caricatured head of John Lennon in concrete and ciment fondu.

 

Here is the original head modelled in clay on a wood and wire armature.

 

 

And here he is in the process of being turned into a mould.

 

However, here are still quite a few more steps to go!

International Women's Day Ryde Art Prize

Now for some better news. I have just had my Mad Cow accepted in the open section of the Ryde Art Prize as "The Tyranny of Fashion"  (as a student at Meadowbank TAFE, I am eligible:) .

 

The theme of the exhibition is Ending Violence Against Women so I justified it as, "An illustration of the violence that women do to themselves to conform to the dictates of fashion!" Well that corset is very tight!

 

Judging is on Thursday. Keep your fingers crossed:)