Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2014

Sculpture by the Sea is one of the world’s largest free to the public arts events, with an annual exhibition staged in Bondi featuring over 100 sculptures by contemporary artists from Australia and around the world. We are thrilled to launch SxS on the Cultural Institute with our 18th annual exhibition, extending it’s reach to an international audience. Founded in 1997 as a one-day exhibition along the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk and attended by some 25,000 people, Sculpture by the Sea now attracts an estimated 520,000 visitors over a three week exhibition period. In 2014 Sculpture by the Sea celebrated its 18th year at Bondi, as well as celebrating 10 years of Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe in Perth and in 2015, Sculpture by the Sea, Aarhus in Denmark will be staged for the fourth time. Thank you to each of the 109 exhibiting artists from 16 countries around the world. The mix of first time exhibitors showing alongside artists for whom the exhibition is a major part of their career, as well as leading international artists such as David Černy (Czech Republic), Wang Shugang (China), Keizo Ushio (Japan) and Guan Wei (China/Australia) is one of the defining features of Sculpture by the Sea. Thank you to our eminent Curatorial Panel for selecting this year’s exhibiting artists from over 500 submissions, including some of the largest installations we have exhibited. We hope you enjoy the show! David Handley, Founding Director    

“A static hour, a marker in time that shaped a person or planet. An hour that has importance and is significant in our own or collective history". Nick Maxwell is a Tasmanian artist and designer based in Hobart. He completed his Bachelor of Fine Art majoring in sculpture at the University of Tasmania in 2002. He has exhibited in numerous exhibitions around Tasmania and Victoria. Maxwell’s work relies heavily on reclaiming, salvaging and transforming materials and is predominantly directed by the materials at hand mostly Tasmanian hard wood and minor species. He seeks to reinvent the material and is fascinated with the history and stories the materials and objects offer. His work utilizes figurative and iconic symbolism as a means to convey a narrative. His larger works tend to be bold and symbolic in nature. Maxwell is also a practicing furniture designer and maker with a similar ethos of reuse and reclaiming to create stylish sustainable design.

"Even stones are worth protection. The shape of the tube bandages around the stones refers to natural shapes". Hannah Streefkerk was born in The Netherlands in 1973. Currently Streefkerk is living and working in Sweden. She received her masters in The Netherlands at the Art Academies of Maastricht and Groningen. She has participated in many exhibitions, symposia and bienales over the whole world. Streefkerk's work can be described as translated patterns and mended nature. With her work Streefkerk wants to create awareness for taking better care of our environment. Her work consists of art in nature projects, installations, sculptures and embroidery. In almost all her work textile materials and techniques are used.

"This open structure with its suspended shapes is like a morning star, hovering in the sky". Ayako Saito came to Australia in 2002 from Tokyo and studied sculpture at the Australian National University from 2003, finishing a masters degree in 2008. Saito’s recent works are organic forms, inspired by the sensuality of the figure and are informed by the traditions of figurative sculpture. She mostly creates these works in plaster and then casts them in bronze. The steel geometric sculptures in this exhibition are something of a departure from the organic forms she has worked with before. Her bronze sculptures displace space, whereas the steel ones embrace and shape space using geometry to bring out the clarity and movement of the space. This geometry is what underlies nature.

"We are threatened by the mountains of floating rubbish. Five great garbage patches, more every day". Growing up in the Goldfields in the seventies, a career in art was not deemed to be a serious career option. Kerrie trained as a nurse, juggling working full time with as many visual art workshops as possible in Lake Grace. In 1997 the community of Lake Grace was offered an opportunity to take part in a pilot program with Curtin University to do an Art and Design course, which Argent eagerly undertook. She was then offered a position to continue her associate degree and ten years later Argent had her degree in art and the ability to prioritize her practice. Her work has since been acquired in various national and international private collections. Argent creates art out of everyday disposable materials, experimenting with forms and enjoying the audience response to objects composed with items usually thrown away. Argent has had five solo exhibitions since graduating, as well as a number of group exhibitions including Sculpture by the Sea in Bondi, Cottesloe, and Aarhus. She was awarded the Western Australian Sculptor Scholarship alongside fellow artist Elaine Clocherty at Cottesloe in 2014.