Winner of the Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award 2018 Hannah Toohey for Archaea 4 (detail). Supplied.
In the Artist Statement for his sculptural collage The No-Between Series, Eugene Carchesio writes, ‘A thought is as large as the world.’ Given the size of the thoughts contained in these 40 finalists for the Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award 2018, scale is of little consequence for expression of complex ideas. Whether it be cultural, ecological, sociological, political, philosophical or anthropological, the pieces are all referential; they serve as acute commentaries in compact shapes.
Given the liberty to work in three dimensions, these pieces explore and explode the possibilities of the form, whether by carving, casting or construction. The only pure carving is Chi-Ling Tabart’s There’s plenty of fish in the sea, which is an ironic comment in Huon pine and resin on the fact that seafood is at the heart of the daily diets of the Taiwanese, but fish stocks are at the point of collapse. Kendal Murray’s Blue Bird, Overheard, combines carving and casting with drilling, painting and wiring to consider the animistic properties of a doll as a childhood companion in a delicate and tender work. Taro Iiyama also identifies with animistic beliefs in Prayers for the extinct, which is a hybrid animal of the imagination constructed with recycled cardboard to make a spiritual and environmental statement. Kate Rohde also makes her own natural curiosity in Three roses, an Oriental-inspired mutant cat with a rose quartz anatomy and tail of pink roses made with resin, fiberglass and aluminium in a resin cast and assembly.
Exhibition Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award 2018. Supplied.
Although there are pieces in the exhibition that could work on any scale, such as Dan Wollmering’s Baby Blue, a metal fabrication that plays with geometrics, or John Nicholson’s Small Whale, a sculpture of acrylic and acrylic mirror that reflects upon the edges between the real and the digital, some works can only be successful at this size. Susanna Strati’s Elegy for Threadwork #1 is a wooden table with copper fibres that is a relic of the Italian dowry tradition of passing on embroidery techniques from mother to daughter. Rox de Luca’s Black blue bundle is a sculpture of pieces of plastic found washed up on the beaches of Bondi and Rose Bay that looks like a gross tangle of beads and necklaces, a perversion of jewellery that incriminates our indiscriminate use of single-use plastics. Jos Van Hulsen’s Playtime is a construction of a pair of girls’ sandals mounted on a pedestal wood carving of exaggerated platform soles to savage the sexualisation of young girls in consumer culture.
Deakin University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jane den Hollander AO, with Leanne Willis, Senior Manager, Art Collection and Galleries with 2018 winner Archaea 4. Supplied.
Out of 390 digital entries that became 40 shortlisted entries, the judging panel of Lisa Byrne, Director of McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery; Robyne Latham, practicing artist and former Deakin University academic; and Leanne Willis, Senior Manager of Art Collection and Galleries at Deakin and representing the university, awarded the $10,000 acquisitive prize to Hannah Toohey for Archaea 4, a whimsical combination of spheres of fabric and stuffing astride thin porcelain legs with feet of raccoon claws to create an improbable creature that teeters between a soft toy and taxidermy, drawing a short and fragile line between childhood and death.
In its tenth year, this annual acquisitive award and exhibition is the best way to see the best of small-scale sculptures by the best of Australian practitioners from every state and territory in the nation. To see them all in one room is like a banquet to be savoured, one serving at a time. Some will be more to your taste than others, but there is no denying it is quite a spread, and more than enough to sate every appetite.
4 stars ★★★★
Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award 2018
5 September – 19 October, 2018
Deakin University Art Gallery, Burwood
