July 2001
Wall, floor, ceiling 
'Walking Man (The Night)', 2001- Rick Amor Image Courtesy of Niagara Galleries- Photographer: Sophia Ledgoe And if you are an artist lucky enough to have a regular gig at a commercial gallery, you might be breathing a little easier these days. If your art is physically durable and can easily be situated outside of the gallery now is the time to get at least some financial return for your hard work. Niagara Galleries in Richmond appears to be one such gallery successfully championing the cause. Good solid returns in the last eighteen months from the likes of John Kelly, Angela Brennan, and most recently, Steven Harvey have left some (well, me at least) drooling with jealousy. Of course, we have always known that paintings are easier to sell compared to sculpture, particularly when a lot of sculptural works refuse to have any commodity status attached. Okay, I am being a little unfair to the painters here, but let us hope that in this present climate more and more sculptors can get to see their work find a home beyond the dusty corner of a studio. It was good to see then that Niagara recently held a small group show of sculpture. wall, floor, ceiling brought together those artists at the gallery who make (at least sometimes) sculptural work, with some special guest appearances as well. Of course, there was no set theme for this show other than what the title suggests, and that is, "Here! We have all sorts of 3-D work to suit your needs, taste and fancy." Undoubtedly, the flagship of the show was Rick Amor. And that is not just because of the price tag he commands. The most mature and recognised of all these artists, his bronze figure Walking Man (The Night) is an impressive example of how to model the human figure in clay, taking liberties with the form and pulling it off easily. A slightly smaller than life-size businessman, brief case and all, mopes along through his daily grind with all his troubles weighing him down. If producing a human figure at 120 per cent of actual size creates an aura of respect and grandeur, then at 80 per cent the feeling is of pity - or at least in this case it is. The other artists who chose to work in bronze were not, I think, anywhere as successful. I could not help thinking when I saw Yvonne Kendall’s Underfelt- Donkey at the Lempriere this year that I was merely viewing a cast bronze copy of one of her soft sculptures. Obviously I was, but it seemed incongruous then that a sculptor noted for her special use of materials, with their implicit tactile qualities, should have those very aspects denied by something as cold and hard as bronze. I still had that feeling when I saw it again. John Kelly’s contribution Museum Cow was a bronze cow placed inside an old time display case but surely the museum theme is an idea that has been done to death by other artists in recent years. Terry Batt’s four works use an inventive idea of tiny figures playing on and in over-sized smoking pipes. They are whimsical and cute, but maybe too much so. There is something about anthropomorphising shapes or objects to suggest the features of a face or body that is just so easy to do. We have all done it from childhood since we stared at the clouds in the sky and saw all sorts of things. However, to do it convincingly in art is another matter. Billy Petyarre’s painted wooden Figure achieves this much more convincingly and with a lot more restraint. It, like Batt’s, is simple in composition but manages to retain an essence of the rawness and harshness of his materials, and thus balances the whimsical with an element of the sinister. Indeed, an interesting contrast is provided in this show between those that used bronze as their medium and those that chose wood. It seemed that the woodworkers had to be totally respectful of the demands that their materials made, whereas some of the foundry works appeared to take the attitude that bronze has its own intrinsic aura and, thus, will always be compatible to the form and feeling of a work. Sometimes this is true and sometimes it is not. For me, bronze is akin to gold jewellery - just by wearing it is no guarantee that you will look classy or convincing. Besides the Petyarre piece, the two other wood pieces that grabbed my attention were by Bruce Armstrong and Robert Bridgewater. Armstrong’s Red Square is what you would expect considering his recent directions with paint. A bird sits atop a large block and on its chest is painted a red, or should that be pink, square like some t-shirt design. It is a nice touch of offbeat humour. Robert Bridgewater also continues his investigation of colour in Blue Door. Here there is a nicely balanced amalgam of his more familiar organic patterning and the manufactured forms of humanity. There is an alluring feeling of absence around his work - absence of the hands that chiselled and chopped the wood - leaving the viewer with the urge to picture the process of creation. Other works that caught my eye were those of Ad Jong Park and a Neil Taylor stuck up high in the corner of the ceiling. Park’s wall hangings behave like paintings and indeed toy with the idea of transgressing from three-dimensional objects to two-dimensional images and back again. The choice of materials such as rice paper, sumi-ink and metallic thread is more unusual compared to the other works and consequently more thought provoking. Taylor continues to play with wire-mesh - this time seeming to subvert its physicality by imbuing it with more ethereal qualities. Is it solid like wire or is it more like electricity or light? As I said, the only theme for this show was sculpture. Each work brought its own ideas along, offering a varied diet for the tastebuds. Let us hope that, for these sculptors at least, the tastebuds of those who have the necessary cash are well and truly tempted. Art, after all, is a bit more tasteful than a prestige car. And cars depreciate in value. Anyway, something tells me there’s a recession a’coming! Sooner or later. Back to Newsletter Index |