Sculptures@theHouse
Sculptures@theHouse, featuring works on loan from artists and curated with the assistance of the Art Gallery of NSW and the National Art School, celebrates emerging and established New South Wales sculptors. It brings to Government House a freshness, juxtaposing the truly contemporary with the much-valued heritage status of the site in sympathetic and engaging ways.
Australia (2001)
Sculptor: Paul Selwood
Medium/Materials: Hot zinc sprayed steel. 2 pack polyurethane paint
Artist's Statement:
After drawing mountain profiles in the Wollombi Valley, I began to model sculptures derived from landscape forms which were cut from a flat plate of steel. A process of slotting the plates together provided a secure stance against the force of gravity while at the same time enclosing volumes of space which could be read as valleys. All the plates stand vertical to the ground and collect and reflect sunshine in a dramatic animation through the day.
For further information visit the sculptor's website.
Copse (2024)
Sculptor: Michael Snape
Medium/Materials: Steel
Artist's Statement:
In 2019 I made a group 29 sculptures from cut and folded sheets of steel. The show was called ‘The Folded Forest’ and exhibited at Australian Galleries Sydney in October 2020. The separate sculptures spoke singly, but when I made clusters to bring them together the individual works spoke more volubly. Twenty-nine sculptures became five. ‘Copse’ emerged second, after ‘The Choir’ (Sculpture by The Sea, 2024).
‘Copse’ is quite intimate in scale. It is a quiet conversation. The parts are rustling and whispering to each other. They are both hiding from us and revealing themselves. We are looking at the work and through it. One part is tall because the other is short. One part is inhaling. Another is sighing. The parts speak to each other but not onerously. This is a free flowing conversation.
No matter how many times you circle the sculpture, you can never get to the front.
At Government House the work has a stately presence because of the formality of the Government House grounds. It is like a small cathedral with no interior.
For further information visit the sculptor's website
Parterre (2013)
Sculptor: Paul Selwood
Medium/Materials: Steel, 2-pack polyurethane paint
Artists Statement:
My working method is a personal one of play and observation and improvisation. A process of discovering the sculpture rather than illustrating an idea, so I am looking for formal invention as the content and meaning of the work.
For further information visit the sculptor's website.
Stack (2016)
Sculptor: Clara Hali
Medium/Materials: Bronze
Artist's Statement:
‘Stack’ is about the integration of geology and yoga in figurative form. The landscape acts as a metaphor for the duality of fragility and strength in humans, while yoga represents the potential union with humans. ‘Stack’ is about the precarious balance of human life in the form of a figure in the pose of a headstand.
Anatomy (2020)
Sculptor: James Rogers
Medium/Materials: Steel
Artist's Statement:
‘Anatomy is an improvised sculpture of steel strips cut from a pipe. A partial radial like structure is repeated and counterpointed. Composed with a sympathetic rhythm of strips joined at the ends in clusters that respond to the variety of twists created by the cut pipe. An open spatial interplay interacts forming an aperture like opening and closing as the work is encountered from differing points of view. The bare bones nature of the piece and the muscle tone shifts in the twisting element’s ability to play with light, led to a title invoking a finite entity’
For further information visit the sculptor's website.