The 2017 catalogue of the Swell
Sculpture Festival held at Currumbin Beach, Queensland, Australia has
been published here to illustrate the review and commentary of this
event: see - http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/swell-sculpture-festival-2017-again-and.html
This allows all sculptures to be
illustrated and all texts associated with each work to be included in
order to cover the broad scope of this outdoor exhibition as
compactly and completely as possible.
The SWELL LIST 2017 below gives a brief
commentary on each work.
Even the rear cover advertisement is the same as 2016.
SWELL SCULPTURE
FESTIVAL 2017 LIST
01 Alison
Allcock, NSW Surf Warriors
Arrows on the beach.
The piece has interesting references but seems to lack delight. Is
one looking at natives at war or at crude rockets? Maybe both? Does
one seek more in a work of art? The sculpture has an interesting
‘primitive’ quality about it, an enigma made more strange by the
title. Just what is the impact of a title on a work of art?
02 Stephanie
Puggioni, QLD Self Love
Did I see this work
or am I dreaming? The sculptures need much more clarification by
being numbered and located on the map. Just placing a few big red
dots on a diagram means nothing. The work appears a little contrived
and insincere. Is it the ‘intellectual’ quality of the idea that
gives it too much of a rational understanding in spite of the sweet
image?
03 Kymberley
McElroy, QLD Fabricated
A large-scale sewing
work appropriately titled. One is not too challenged by this piece
that looks like sometihng in the ‘big’ variety of things
Australian, like bananas and bulls.
04 Joe Stark,
NSW Captain Goodvibes The Pig of Steel
A cheeky work that
is fun, with clever pieces and parts, possibly inspired somewhat by
the early Trotter work. It is readily enjoyable and stands well in
its sandy location, looking just like its title.
05 Sonia Payes,
VIC Littoral Zone – The Begginning
The face illustrated
in the catalogue has little to do with the experienced work that is
intriguing and well crafted. The sculpture both looks and feels good
as one walks around the beautifully flowing surfaces protruding from
the sand, to discover faces, both literally and littorally. It is a
shame that so many of the illustrations in the catalogue are
unstarted projects. It gives a sense of the hopefully ad hoc to
things that should be much more carefully considered and planned. Do
all artists work to the very last minute?
06 Jacqueline
Damon, QLD Intuitions
While the title
might sound unusual, the work is powerful in its identity, simplicity
and intent. It is truly a ‘tent’ that is a real ‘light’
house. The clever interplay of reality and idea gives this work a
strength that is impressive. Its sewing craft cleverly creates images
that hold their rigour even for the glancing eye.
07 Greg Johns,
SA Horizon Figure
One is left trying
to recall this work. If this is the case, did it have any impact? The
published image does not help with remembrance. It suggests a whales
tail, but was there one of these?
08 Joy Heylen,
QLD The Crab
A heavy mass of a
monster that seems uneasy on its rock: might it fall? Are crabs
really happy on such surfaces? The rough sketch disappoints more than
the completed work. The piece reads better from a distance. Nearby,
the details get lost in the contrast of glare and the fuzziness of
the rusting surfaces. The work is best experienced in the surprise of
its discovery, cleverly camouflaged on the mass of rock. It is this
beginning that one takes into the closer readings of this work that
are less successful in their engagement. The original understanding
that carries the hope of the whole overcomes the more intimate
concerns.
09 Jonathan
Leahey, VIC A Bomb May Kill You
But Time Always Will
The scary bomb and
all that comes with it makes this a frightening piece, aggravated by
the timer. Should one leave quickly? Just what stimulates such
‘statements’ as this is a question that needs attention. Is it
art? Is it a moral or social event? It is a work that it difficult to
appreciate, especially when the artist has nothing more to say about
it other than its uninspiring title. While one is frequently critical
about artists’ statements, the lack of one does leave a hole, a gap
in the understanding.
10 Clayton
Thompson, QLD Safe
Another rough sketch
for an incomplete idea. The final work is much more powerful than the
image. It has a lovely authority managed with a simple idea of
materials, structure and form. It is a work that it easily
over-looked for its seriousness because of its ordinariness. It has a
powerful reference to the ancient broch and makes a very pretty
landmark.
11 Suzi Lucas,
QLD Moonbird B95
This work is easily
seen as a cliché image, but it is much more than this. The sculpture
has a lovely lightness about it, but in some parts is a little
crudely fabricated. Yet the image still dances visually with a sweet
elegance.
12 Lance Seadon,
NSW Currumbin Cruzin’
This work is a
little like Trotter’s piece, (see below number 45), only more
diagrammatic. It has the sense of a child’s fair game – like
Dodgems. It is difficult to appreciate as art, although there are
some interesting bits and pieces here that anchor themselves in their
origins – as different bits of machinery.
13 Manfred
Kielnhofer, AUSTRIA Guardians of Time
If the artworks
exhibited were all finished and photographed for the catalogue, one
might be able to recall a particular work. Being asked to remember a
work illustrated as some sick, fuzzy graphic image leaves one
confused. This piece is not yet recognised. Map numbers would be a
good start to aid understanding too.
14 Ben Carroll,
VIC Somewhere Else
This must have been
a well-camouflaged piece. It is not recalled. If each work was
located on the centrefold map with a numbered dot, one might be more
able to ensure that the various works were all seen. Why is this not
so? Is it just that it has never been done, and the SWELL management
is not going to do things any differently, ever?
15 Al Phemister,
NSW Fin
This is a strange
work that one seeks to understand just too much: boat on waves on
curved rods? The title suggests more than one sees. It is interesting
in its structural forming more than its confusing subject. Whose fin?
What?
16 Yunghsu Hsu,
TAIWAN 2017-B
This large porcelain
work mesmerises in its scale. That something so fragile can be so
large entrances and puzzles: scares one. It was sad to see some
broken parts, but these could be replaced. Just where something like
this work might be placed is unclear. One is reminded of the fine
porcelain work on the potter in the Shetland Islands, Unst, making
pots out of ‘Shetland lace’ porcelain. Is this piece too large
for its material? What was 2017 -A: a prototype or another work?
Sometimes titles beg questions.
17 Guy Cooper,
QLD Migaloo’s Song
This machine looks
better in its sketch form than in real life. One has to struggle to
see ‘the whale’ here, what with its conglomerate fans and
feathers. It is called ‘song,’ but there was little beautiful
noise here. The work does not seem to reach out beyond being a frame
roughly shaped as a schematic, a diagrammatic whale with things that
move in it and on it. It does not appear ‘environmental’ beyond
its title that seems too good for the piece.
18 Sally Simpson,
NSW Ritual Masks
These are marvellous
pieces. One can see them being worn. They hum with a rich
authenticity, even though one can see the chicken mesh, string and
rope. The transformation is engaging and needs no explanation. This
is an admirable piece that touch real ritual.
19 Phillip
Piperides, QLD Conversations
What are the girls
saying? The situation does not look like a chat. It seems more like
exercising, when huffing and puffing might become more audible than
any rational conversation. The texture of the sculptured figures is
interesting, but the work does not hold an engagement that might get
close to awe. One can appreciate that it is well made and has a
‘solid, safe skill’ about it.
20 Claire
Davenhall, WA Meteor Morphosis
This is an
interesting piece that one is attracted to, but it sits stranded in
space. Is this the ‘meteor’ idea? One keeps asking too many
questions about this work to let it settle down into an emotional
experience.
21 Karl de Waal,
QLD Get a Haircut, Get a Job
Is one reminded of
those road signs just too much to enjoy this work. Political words
resonate and remind one of other times. One has to work hard – too
hard? - to enjoy the piece that seems too ‘roadside’ to work.
22 Jan
Cleveringa, NSW A Moving World (Redundant)
This is a still,
moving piece that one can appreciate on different levels. The sombre
gravestones become, in detail, a collection of discarded fluorescent
tubes arranged as organ pipes to create the classic image of a grave
marker. The combination of pieces and image generate a response that
challenges one on different levels. There is a quiet elegance to this
work that impresses.
23 Antone
Bruinsma, QLD Pandanus Seed People
Immediately
recognisable as pandanus seeds and seats, these beautifully crafted
pieces offer an unpretentious collection for folk to enjoy, in spite
of the signs not to touch or climb. It was enjoyable to touch and
sit, as the artist’s signs invited folk to do. The little faces
offered a quaint Gibbs-like ‘gumnut people’ touch to the idea
that was rigorous and complete, and well executed.
24 Monte Lupo,
QLD Books and Mortar
Puns do not make
good art. There is much more in this work than silly puns. It is a
shame that the title overtakes these subtle qualities of time and
collections. The work is nicely made, but the sketch presentation in
the catalogue leaves one wondering about the task of making. Was it
rushed, or just too late?
25 Giuseppe
Filarod, QLD Weapons of Massive Creations
Pencils at war: this
war theme is a concern. What is the intent here - prophecy or
protest? The images are bold and scary. They frighten one, an
experience that is echoed in Trump’s silly UN words spoken today –
20 September 2017. This is one of the many ‘sketched’ works in
the catalogue. The SWELL management should insist on having a
complete catalogue of finished pieces, if only for the record. The
rough images suggest late-minute outcomes; maybe hurried? The
workmanship here looks a little of both.
26 Gabriel
Rosati, NSW Knight To?
The title puzzles,
but the work delights. The old awning pieces are all recognisable and
offer a lovely decorative reference in reuse; but is this a knight?
The title asks the same question. Art should not be a question. This
piece is subtle and needs a more positive approach to its qualities
than the raising of doubts. It is the tin of the Queenslander without
the timber.
27 Jordan Azcune,
QLD Surrender (White Caps)
One guessed the
title, but not the intent. The work has a lovely tensegrity-like
touch, but it seems an effort to be otherwise engaged with it. The
shadows are lovely; the fluttering pretty; but the whole leaves one a
little lost. Is too much effort needed to understand this piece?
28 Miles Allen,
QLD Love Birds
The Japanese temple
is filled with this idea of fluttering messages. That these are here
on blue card does little to involve one in the idea of the bower that
the work seeks to be. Just what is the relationship between personal
notes and public meaning – and art? In Japan the system is used for
prayers and wishes. Is the artwork too blandly ambitious to try to
use these emotions here?
29 Manning Daly
Art, QLD Tidal Intersection
One struggles to
understand this crescent moon form beyond a blue arc. The tides and
the moon are related, but plonking crescent moon form one beside the
ocean does little to engage one in this mystery that is heightened
with the full moon. Is one asked to think too much? Thought does not
convert into emotion too easily, but emotions can generate thoughts.
30 Daniel
Clemmett, NSW First World Privilege
Here technique
overtakes the effort. Previous years have seen the roughly welded,
coloured panels structure other images. The technique is clearly
identifiable, like the van Dam chain work. Whatever the message might
be – is it political or social? - one struggles to appreciate the
link to the cock. Joe Stark’s, (sculpture number 04), cock has a
greater relevance and obvious immediacy.
31 Yesim
Ustaoglu, TURKEY Everything Solid Evaporates
A difficult work to
appreciate. It starts an intellectual game that invites too much
questioning. Can art be educational in this way; can educational
pieces be art?
32 Wayne
Markwort, QLD Bullboy
A true brut of a
piece that starts one thinking of possums first, then – whatever;
something rough and brash: maybe bully boy. It is the form or the
colour? Both? It is not a loveable work, but is probably not supposed
to be. One struggles to enjoy its craft.
33 MJ Ryan
Bennett, QLD A New Face
A Ferris wheel that
delights as a string of chairs. The Currumbin ‘Eye’? It is a
successful piece that opens up to the horizon with style. It is
modestly priced too, something that ‘art’ today needs to
consider. The idea that ‘art’ has to be hugely expensive to be
considered ‘of quality’ is a misconception promoted by some
artists and art dealers. One thinks of Lucian Freud selling works in
America for any huge, multi-million dollar figure he could conjure
up.
34 Vince Vozzo,
NSW Philosopher, Artist, Poet
Three-in-one. The
piece is beautifully crafted, but has strong references to the work
of others – Brancusi comes to mind. It becomes a struggle to see it
other than a work dedicated to the modern masters; but then one sees
a little something else in the stone and likes it again. It becomes
admirable; skilful. Dare one touch it?
35 Jina Lee,
WA Atom 11
Was there an ‘Atom
1’? This sculpture looks more like a geological specimen. It seems
lost in its location, and leaves one puzzling about its sense, while
admiring its massing, colour, form and finish. It makes one see the
random rocks in the area as ‘art.’
36 Sha Sarwari,
VIC Alienation
Gosh, it is not easy
to see ‘alienation’ here. It looks like one of the pair has
fallen over. Is this ‘alienation’? The work seems to have better
possibilities than this, being cleverly constructed in timber, as a
violin might be. Hummmm.
37 Abraham
Fungalei Tongia, QLD She’s His & He Is Hers
Did I see this work?
It must have been well integrated into its context. The title and the
published image seem to try to offer some mystery to duplication that
is rarely there.
38 Ibrahim Koc,
Turkey The Loose Power
It do not remember
seeing this work. Was it there? The published image seems to be a
variation of the ‘big chair’ theme that we have seen over the
years: OOPS! Be careful! Is the message to be careful with power?
Political messages do not necessarily make good art; broken chairs
likewise.
39 Sean Williams,
QLD The Huntress
An interesting
‘early Trotter’ copy? It is just that the early Trotter pieces
are much better, more skilful in their suggestiveness, their
identity, although not as slickly finished as this piece that one can
come to admire the more one looks at it.
40 Rushdi Anwar,
VIC Art, Like Morality, Consists In Drawing the Line
Somewhere . . Is It?
A question in the
title leaves the whole questionable. Is this about war, or peace?
Sandbags remind of Aleppo and WW1, but . . . What is one to make of
this beyond these associations? Is this ‘moral’ art? A sculpture
drawing a line? The effort offers a real puzzle.
41 Michael Nelson
Jagamatra, QLD Lightning Strike at Currumbin
A zigzag, brassy
mass does not make lightning, even if it might be ‘interesting.’
it is the comic book diagram of lightning. The work has other
associations beyond lightning that stick in one’s mind prior to
understanding the idea – consider the lyre.
42 Jeanette
Krohn, NSW Post-Tree Museum 11
A crude, weathered
hardwood post, complete with a barbed wire base, (?), capped with a
gorgeous glass tree that looks just like jade. It is very delightful,
but leaves one pondering the intent. A better placement might have
transformed this work. One could see the glass only with trees in the
background. Better light would have transformed the work.
43 Casselle
Mountford, QLD Caduceus
A beautiful piece of
canework that moves nicely in the breeze. Its ordinary appearance
requires one to apply oneself to truly enjoy this piece. How might
this be overcome? The question arises: what is it for? Does it
matter? Well, yes: art needs substance.
44 Village Bike
Inc., QLD Speed of Sound
Puns rarely make
good art. Placing a couple of things, a pianola and a bicycle/wind
structure, side by side with little beyond juxtaposition and a title
to hold them together, offers only a form to the pun of the title
that puzzles rather than thrills. It is like a pun on a pun: not
funny or even ‘punny’ art.
45 Christopher
Trotter, QLD Beached Racer
It is difficult to
know what Mark Trotter is doing these days. Last year he expressed an
interest in industrial objects; now it is in vehicles – see his
Northerly SWELL truck. This work lacks the wonder of his early
sculptures of animals and birds, even fossils. This newly mechanised
sculpture does not seem to be able to engage his marvellous eye for
imagery and associations. What one sees is a decorated racer-like
thing. It does not seek the transformation, the rereading of form,
its reinterpretation, beyond machinery that his other pieces did. It
seems to leave him somewhat ‘beached’ himself, using machine
parts ‘artfully.’
46 Tom Lawson &
Dave Bell, QLD Echo 2
“Whatever you want
it to be” was the mother’s explanation of this piece. Perhaps
this comment to the child does offer the core critique of ambiguity
and uncertainty – what is the intent here beyond ‘art’? The
work does have a growth/leaf imagery about it, but the title wants to
touch on something else.
47 Paul
Harrington, NSW Colours of the Wind
An engaging work
visually that has interesting functional possibilities. One is
surprised by the camera, how it stops the spin to offer some
beautiful patterns. The work deserves more consideration than it
appears to ask for. It is too easily dismissed as a spinning toy
might be. It needs to make more of the ‘colour’ in its title, and
to work with the set more closely as a whole rather than as a set of
isolated parts. Imagine one large, bold colourful piece of varying
scales intertwining cleverly as the different parts spin their own
mystic stories.
48 Rosi Griffin,
QLD Bus Stop – Direction – La Serena Chile
An interesting idea
that has more rational architectural overtones than ‘arty’ ones.
The idea behind the work seems too literal and geographic to engage
one other than intellectually; but it does make one aware of the
world we live on.
49 Alicia Lane,
QLD Araucarian Leaf
A subtle work that
is easy to dismiss. It is one that deserves more attention than it
seems to seek. It makes a splendid shawl-like wreath when draped
across the trunks of the tree; a very pretty object to discover.
50 Glenn Barry,
QLD I See All Of Me And Some Of You
It becomes a struggle to fully enjoy this work beyond its decorative
possibilities. One is reminded of some classy speaker boxes. The
arrangement might have heightened the idea, rather than dispaly a set
of different but similar forms, as if they might be options.
51 Michael Van
Dam, QLD These Hands
More marvellous
chain sculpture – all very interesting, but the technique starts to
overcome the intent, idea and meaning with the ‘as seen before’
syndrome. The Elephant Rock location always seems to be a challenge
for SWELL. This sculpture does not appear to be a suitable piece for
this location. Maybe it should be forgotten if there is no
appropriate work submitted. Should management be more proactive in
seeking particular artworks for various possibilities? Might the pink
broch, number 10 by Clayton Thompson, have held a better presence
here? Would this have given this plastic work just too much
prominence? Still, number 10 looked spectacular on the beach, like a
bottle brush flower. Could it have been better? The hands, sadly, had
no public presence on their elevated location.
For previous SWELL catalogues, see:
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