Fundamentally Unstable; 2015; Curtin University, Churchie Emerging Artist Award, Bunbury Regional Gallery.
This series of small concrete based objects give a passing nod to the culture and materiality of the construction industry. Teetering awkwardly, absurd stacks play with ideas of balance and material failures: cracking, then patched, as clays introduce fragility; slumping and dispersing to accommodate seemingly floating objects; sagging and bloating bodily inside cardboard boxes; accumulating fragments to form an uncomfortable whole. The works playfully subvert our preconceptions about concrete as a monumental, stable and ubiquitous construction material.
Materials choices are accessible and, with found objects and industrial colours, reinforce concepts around balance, stability, gravity, containment, intrusion and control. The use of site specific soils, building waste and the process of layering, act to document a site and highlights the insecurity of permanence and place. A handmade, makeshift aesthetic contradicts industrial form, scale and surface predictability.
Tensions inherent in the works allow us to examine the precarious relationship between ourselves and the physical world, in which we are embedded. The works manifest an expressive and destabilising counterpoint to industrial certainty through contemplating the complexities in this incongruous alloy of parts.
Fundamentally Unstable 1 | 2015 | concrete, site specific soil, polyurethane foam, paint | 24 x 27 x 34 cm
Fundamentally Unstable 7 | 2015 | concrete, polyurethane foam, paint, copper | 35 x 25 x 49 cm
Fundamentally Unstable 5 | 2015 | concrete, site specific soil, polyurethane foam, paint | 15 x 18 x 28 cm
Fundamentally Unstable 4 | 2015 | concrete, site specific soil, plastic, rock, paint | 12 x 16 x 35 cm
Fundamentally Unstable 3 | 2015 | concrete, polyurethane foam, brick, paint | 12 x 12 x 43 cm
Fundamentally Unstable 2 | 2015 | concrete, site specific soil, lead, rock, paint | 12 x 19 x 40 cm
Fundamentally Unstable series (installation views) | 2015 | concrete, site specific soil, polyurethane foam, timber, mesh, cord, paint | dimensions variable.
Fundamentally Unstable series (installation views) | 2015 | concrete, site specific soil, polyurethane foam, timber, mesh, cord, paint | dimensions variable.
Fundamentally Unstable series (installation views) | 2015 | concrete, site specific soil, polyurethane foam, timber, mesh, cord, paint | dimensions variable.
After Louise Bourgeois | image of artist.
