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McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park
390 McClelland Drive, Langwarrin, Vic
(Until 6 July)
Since 2003, the McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park has offered the generous financial award of $100,000 to the winner of the McClelland biennial sculpture survey.
The 35 sculptors selected to exhibit have responded to the outdoor setting in a range of styles, mediums and themes. Steel, fibreglass, timber, copper and bitumen are just some of the materials used to construct their mostly large-scale works; which are dotted around the park along a constructed trail. This sense of turning a corner and ‘discovering’ what lies ahead is exhilarating. Some of the works even need to be searched out among the trees and bushes.
Both emerging and established sculptors have works on display. The winner of the Award for 2007, for his piece Relic, is the well-known and most deserving Australian artist Rick Amor.
Amor has sculpted from bronze and cor-ten steel a form that carries with it his trademark sense of poetic mystery and menace. Whilst the form resembles an Egyptian deity, there is enough ambiguity about it that it can’t be easily categorised. It is, if anything, a form that has sprung from Amor’s unconscious.
The 16 hectares of landscaped bushland have inspired some of the sculptors to engage directly with the environment. Laura Woodward’s kinetic sculptures, Pulse, resemble spiders hanging from the trees. The works, made from stainless steel, take you by surprise not only because of their scale, but also because sensors pick up on the motion of the viewer as you approach, causing the mechanical forms to pulsate.
Anna Eggert has constructed a disquieting work, Dwelling amongst others, consisting of mesh sculptures of female figures. The figures appear almost as apparitions moving through the landscape. The position of this piece, in and among a partially-cleared area of ti-tree scrub, adds to the overall effect.
William Eicholtz’s Impossible Cornucopia presents… is a gloriously decadent outdoor sculpture reminiscent of 19th century garden statuary. The rococo-esque figure towers above the ground, draped in fruits and flowers. Made from polymer cement and covered in epoxy glaze the sculpture is grand on every level.
Other sculptors such as Shelly Kelly, Geoffrey Bartlett and Geoffrey Ricardo have memorable works on display. On the whole the McClelland Sculpture Survey offers the visitor a rewarding view of current trends in contemporary sculpture.
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