there is too much inspiration. i want to make too many things. below is a collection of random old and new stuff, which hopes to look coherent when placed together on one page….
kinetic sculpture
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even though it is very old, this is one of my favourite works. funnel was created for the tactile art award held at object gallery in 2005, judged by the sighted and non-sighted, the aim to create works that could be appreciated through touch. a large carbon-fibre funnel was made and smoothed into a wall erected for it, then set with 250 stainless steel balls in a fibonacci spiral. each one of those large balls moved freely under the hand on a bed of 180 smaller balls, rolling in a hand-formed hemi-spherical brass cup, sealed with a felt washers, and held in with a cast plastic lip – all 250 units, plus funnel and wall, made by hand – craziness….
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orbit was created for the twocubes exhibition at Sherman Galleries in 2007. using a pair of large magnets rotating in a weirdly designed contraption hidden beneath a hollow dome, stainless steel balls were dragged about in strange charming groups, dancing upon one another and generaly misbehaving….
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insomnia was shown in the group exhibition reflex 2 at Gaffa gallery in 2010, a sleepless tribute to noisy and messy kinetic sculpture everywhere, with 80’s looped cassette and a model of my mercedes driving round and round and round….
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albert the albino alpaca for president! was shown in the exhibition alter ego, curated by zoe brand at gaffa gallery in 2010. a silly noisy homage to my favourite alpaca, consisting of a soft fuzzy albert, a dozen constantly turning moo-cow-cans, several blocks of chocolate to keep it all balanced, and an inspired texta-drawn electoral speech that promised the best of all things…..
smoke vortex research
smoke vortices were made using machines built to purpose, from 2015-2017, filmed in my garage with old 16mm slow-motion film cameras. the rolls of film were hand-developed and digitally transferred, each of the small movie frames in the 3 kilometres of film captured individually for digital transfer at 4K with a legendary lumix gf-1….
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sound recordings, laser density measurements, and various images were also taken, using analogue film, from 35mm small-scale to 16×20″ ultra-large-format, in negatives and direct positives, bleach reversals, shadow photogrammes using a specially-developed point-source flash unit, streak photography, stereoscopic pairs, laser-plane cross-sections, and even plain digital photos.
golden repairs
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these repairs of everyday broken things started out when i fixed my grandmother’s old plastic kettle with a gold button, making a wearable ring out of the broken plastic button. from there it continued, offering my services to an old lady and her broken mixmaster in the doctor’s surgery, with many others following, showing with vernon bowden in loaded (2008), and later in signs of change (2011), championing the repair and re-use of mundane objects, and reconnecting people with their everyday tools and appliances. you can read more about this whole project here.
leach
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leach was an interpretation of the traditional rosary, made for an exhibition in wollongong city art gallery arranged by the madonna del rossario association in 2006. using a large sheet of handmade paper and small graphite beads that were formed and set into the paper, traditional prayers were written in graphite, over and over, words seeming to leach out of the beads, curling away in repeated prayer, tracking time and revealing the dedicated nature of devotion. now in the collection of the church of madonna del rosario in falerma, italy.
stainless steel kettles
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i have not made many of these water-boiling kettles, but i keep meaning to come back to the blistery fun of hammering out sheet steel into smooth functional forms. a friend uses one of these kettles everyday, and it is only getting better with age, as is he….