The Tiger Club Revamp..

After a whirlwind visit to the foundry where lots of hot air and mutterings accompanied a frenzied casting, patinating and painting, Kerry had a five minute rest before returning to the studio to contemplate the improvements he wants to make to the base of The Tiger Club. 

This large sculpture investigates the sordid side of male culture.  It is an installation of bronze, fibre optics and mirrors which, having 150 individual pieces and a steel base, took Kerry 2 years to complete.  Not being satisfied with the original support as he felt that it did not truly complement the piece, Kerry has designed a more elegant and aesthetically pleasing base to enhance the beautiful sculpture.

Sculptors of large and complex pieces have to have a good understanding of engineering and be able to draw up accurate plans.  Kerry has spent quite some time nutting out the design of the base, transferring it onto paper and translating it into a cardboard model to ensure that the base will be cut and welded correctly.

So far so good, but as was once said, the proof is in the pudding and this pudding has yet to be baked. Keep an eye on this space.

 

 

The Casting..

It is very cold in the studio but the indomitable artist Kerry is hard at work; wearing a hat and a complete set of thermal underwear, he perseveres. The series ‘Polar Bears’ is nearly complete and many of the pieces are in the process of being cast at the foundry.

At the foundry the wax figures are individually dipped into a ceramic slurry which hardens around the piece and after the wax is melted out (usually with the help of a blow torch) the mould is filled with molten bronze. Once the bronzes have cooled, which takes about an hour, each piece is checked to make sure there are no bronze short runs which can result in missing fingers or toes.

Kerry’s narratives are usually made up of several figures and a base and these are then welded together and patinated or painted.

Aboriginal Show at Ceramic Break

Our opening at Ceramic Break yesterday Sunday 8th June was a great day; lots of fabulous art and lots of fabulous people. We are privileged to be exhibiting " Me and my Country" the paintings of Lloyd Nolan Hornsby Gawura, a Koori descendant of the Yuin people and "Coastal Creatures" by Nick Levy a Kamiloroi man from Armidale.
Lloyd's paintings includes a number of 'cosmic' or creation views which are absolutely stunning and as I stood in front of one piece, gazing into the depths, I felt I was drawn deep into the cosmos. Another of his very large canvases was a painting of the year Lake Eyre filled and the helicopter flight Lloyd and his wife Wendy took over the area was shown in a series of fine white lines.
Lloyd is an indefatigable traveller, driving for over 6 hours from Brisbane to Ceramic Break twice in one week, to deliver his work and to be at the opening where his artist's talk and willingness to chat delighted all of the attendees.

Nick's work is wonderfully colourful, exciting and very uplifting.  He is fascinated by the coast and its creatures and that is evident in his show. I particularly liked two pieces, one a pair of ecstatically joyous fish and one a glorious depiction of, maybe, the rainbow serpent. All of Nick's paintings lift the spirits.
This is the Lizard Queen's Assistant.

Abundance

 Traditionally Inuits used to hunt dovekies in July when they were nesting on high cliffs. They would catch the birds, kill them and stuff them into bags made of sealskin and full of seal blubber to ferment. During winter these morsels would be brought out and eaten as treats.

In the series, Polar Bear, the bears often behave as Inuits. In the beautifully shaped composition, Abundance, both bears carry sealskin bags and nets to catch the dovekies. If you look carefully at the bears they seem a little disturbed as if they know they are being watched.

The Dream of The White Bear

Kerry is back in the studio sculpting the fourth of 14 compositions for his 14^th series, ‘Polar Bear’.

He has long been fascinated by tales of the frozen north and when reading a copy of National Geographic he was fascinated by a picture of a polar bear swimming underwater.

Coincidentally he had been thinking about dreams and nightmares and this led to him contemplating, in a dark polar January what might a bear dream?

Kerry considers  “Sculpture is limited by being anchored by gravity and is therefore not true 3D.”

With ‘Polar Bear’ he is trying to create a true 3D sculpture giving the illusion of swimming in water.

Art Miami!!

Wow!! Art Miami is HUGE. It is a week long festival of Art, Art and more Art. And Kerry was there. He was actually there to participate in the ISC ‘Movers and Shakers’ Sculptors’ Symposium, but managed to find time to walk the streets and the galleries of many of the 20 different Art fairs. His feet are still recovering.

In the Wynwood Art area huge marquees were set up to house Art Miami; Context; Miami Project; Red Dot Miami; Spectrum Miami and several others. 

On the VIP preview night there were so many people, cars, security and art it was overwhelming.

Nighttime was an exhilarating experience in the Wynwood Art District itself. Situated in one of the grittier parts of Miami, Kerry saw quite a bit of the grit on his walk there. Wynwood is a working class predominantly, Puerto Rican neighborhood, which until recently was renowned for drugs, crime and a general sense of foreboding. It is in the process of transformation due to Art. The night before Art Miami kicked off Kerry and his partner walked those streets, carefully picking their way though the enthusiastic graffiti artists who were creating huge, amazing murals on the walls of the abandoned warehouses. Known as ‘Wynwood Walls’ these attract thousands of people and the energy level is very high. The many small galleries lining the streets show contemporary and bold art, and the young gallery owners are very welcoming. There are also many good places to eat.

One has to go to Art Basel on Miami Beach and Kerry did; it is enormous. It contained what felt like hundreds of booths (and probably was) and each booth was as big as an Art Gallery; Picasso, Henry Moore, Miro and many contemporary artists were displayed. The whole affair though was a bit impersonal, ‘like the art.’

One gallery that was quite different was Aqua Art Miami near South Beach. Set in the Art Deco corridor Aqua is a classic South Beach hotel with spacious exhibition rooms. These are all equipped with luxurious baths which combined with the rooms opening out onto a breezy intimate courtyard gave it the feel of an up market brothel. Kerry said ‘it was a fun place to visit to view art that was more accessible.’

Seeing so much Art so quickly makes it difficult to remember most of it.

Red Dot was Kerry’s favorite, but that might have been because it was the first gallery visited and he was fresh.