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gallery 1

eileen gruen

humanity one

Unforgiving , cantankerous, and sharp, glass is a hazardous artistic partner.   Its technical demands are endless, requiring patience and equanimity.  Facing the challenge of combining meaning with beauty, sculptor Eileen Gruen uses glass as a metaphor for human consciousness in our media-soaked, input-filled, fragmenting modern world.

Pairing transparent lead crystal with opaque metal, Gruen uses these contrasting materials to explore external appearance and inner activity.  Bronze and steel follow the rules of stability, while glass reflects, bends, twists and alters every beam of light that impinges on it, as our minds reflect, bend, twist, and process the barrage of words and images that confront us every day.

Gruen’s sculptural work is a reminder of forces in society pressuring us to be passive mannequins for the display and consumption of material goods.  It also refers to the fragmented nature of our attention.

Eileen Gruen says “we are more than mannequins and fragments.  We are capable of considering these forces and making personal decisions about them, incrementally sculpting humanity's future.”

gallery 2

john quirk

helen cahun

tim voight

STICK

Vessel of violence, toaster of marshmallows and nemesis of gravity… stick has many faces and many applications.

The work of these three artists explore various aspects of stick while remaining unified and harmonised by a conceptual and physical base.

Helen Cahun has a fascination with nature’s cast offs… reinterpreting and bringing definition to the detritus.  Her trinity of sculptures constructed largely from a palette of sticks features symbols presented on a spiritual platform aiming to create an environment of reflection, contemplation and repose.

In contrast, John Quirk is interested in exploring the human journey, where human vulnerability highlights both fragility and beauty.  In the torso images, stick enables construction of paintings and photographs which are etched with the marks of time.

Tim Voight’s focus is on stick as adhesion.  The wax nodules protruding from Voight’s sculptural pieces reflect the feeble attempts to resist decay.  Stick can be fluid and temporary, requiring renewal and cultivation.  The wax layers remain removable and malleable, changing as interactions with the surface modify the landscape.

gallery 3

caroline carruthers

what lies beneath

Ours is a culture based on show and appearance.  We move through life constructing and abandoning various facades as we go...  projecting an attractive face, while hiding those traits that are considered less appealing.    

As the layers build up, what gets buried?  This is what interests Caroline Carruthers who constructs her own surfaces with an eye on the way we construct our public selves.   “The depth of the tissue layers is sometimes only a single layer and other times up to five or six which again references how deeply we bury different things.”

 Resembling a cross section through geological strata these works are an exploration of surface and subterrain.  Utilising acrylic and collage on canvas Carruthers incorporates tissue, frayed fabric threads, sticky labels and candy wrappers into her work.  The result is a body of work that is both colourful and abstract.

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