2021
Falling branches
It feels like a slow unravelling. And you can feel each thud as we slip a little more.
I felt the same thing as a kid in my recurring dreams of the end.
Maybe now I understand. Everything we try to control has consequences. Like entropies we keep disrupting. The dramatic shifts in climate and ecology from land clearing for housing, manufacturing, agriculture and mining. The introduced flora and fauna devastating ecosystems. The millennial old Indigenous systems of land management ignored for maladaptive western ones. And the ongoing climatic changes from intensifying human activity. Every little thing we do feeds in. Centuries of winding tighter and tighter. But now we’re slipping.
Our son was born unable to breathe. For weeks that felt like years we were by his plastic cot side. It was like nothing I’d felt before. Like the widest expanses of love and grief. My insides stretched out until what I could feel and function with carrying was bigger than my body. Eventually we could take him home. Everything I held in my arms was the same as everything around me.
One evening we saw smoke rolling down our street like a great fog, until it swallowed every space around us. Not long after, we could see fire on the mountains nearby. We saw black eucalypt leaves flutter down like snowflakes. It felt like our whole world was on fire.
It was just another thud in our unravelling, but it felt like we were already falling. Those fires were one of the worst disasters in modern history. A product of our collective complacency. They killed over three billion animals and destroyed around 97,000km2 of native vegetation. And now they’ve faded to the ether.
As I held my son I took in everything. I felt those billions of choked breaths and the splintering of great limbs as ecosystems collapsed. Those fires will always remind me of our slow unravelling within a lifetime of ecological grief. Those falling branches. Those fluttering leaves. It’s always a question of values as we slip further, chasing our gilded dreams. This work is both an elegy to what we’re losing and a self-portrait from those times.
'Falling Branches is a new body of sculptural works by Rebecca Selleck that draws attention to the devastation of the recent bushfires in Australia within a wider system of environmental collapse. Referencing both ecological and personal grief, the work is both self portrait and an elegy to what we’re losing.
Bringing together found branches and bronze casts of fungi and leaves, Rebecca's works are a poignant reminder of our role in protecting what is precious.'
It feels like a slow unravelling. And you can feel each thud as we slip a little more.
I felt the same thing as a kid in my recurring dreams of the end.
Maybe now I understand. Everything we try to control has consequences. Like entropies we keep disrupting. The dramatic shifts in climate and ecology from land clearing for housing, manufacturing, agriculture and mining. The introduced flora and fauna devastating ecosystems. The millennial old Indigenous systems of land management ignored for maladaptive western ones. And the ongoing climatic changes from intensifying human activity. Every little thing we do feeds in. Centuries of winding tighter and tighter. But now we’re slipping.
Our son was born unable to breathe. For weeks that felt like years we were by his plastic cot side. It was like nothing I’d felt before. Like the widest expanses of love and grief. My insides stretched out until what I could feel and function with carrying was bigger than my body. Eventually we could take him home. Everything I held in my arms was the same as everything around me.
One evening we saw smoke rolling down our street like a great fog, until it swallowed every space around us. Not long after, we could see fire on the mountains nearby. We saw black eucalypt leaves flutter down like snowflakes. It felt like our whole world was on fire.
It was just another thud in our unravelling, but it felt like we were already falling. Those fires were one of the worst disasters in modern history. A product of our collective complacency. They killed over three billion animals and destroyed around 97,000km2 of native vegetation. And now they’ve faded to the ether.
As I held my son I took in everything. I felt those billions of choked breaths and the splintering of great limbs as ecosystems collapsed. Those fires will always remind me of our slow unravelling within a lifetime of ecological grief. Those falling branches. Those fluttering leaves. It’s always a question of values as we slip further, chasing our gilded dreams. This work is both an elegy to what we’re losing and a self-portrait from those times.
'Falling Branches is a new body of sculptural works by Rebecca Selleck that draws attention to the devastation of the recent bushfires in Australia within a wider system of environmental collapse. Referencing both ecological and personal grief, the work is both self portrait and an elegy to what we’re losing.
Bringing together found branches and bronze casts of fungi and leaves, Rebecca's works are a poignant reminder of our role in protecting what is precious.'
Falling branches, 2021
Dimensions variable
Bronze, burnt eucalyptus branch, sealants
Available through N.Smith Gallery.
Dimensions variable
Bronze, burnt eucalyptus branch, sealants
Available through N.Smith Gallery.
Behind the scenes video courtesy of Art Collector magazine.
Rapiti Tantanaku / Rabbit & Club
Collaborative work with James Tylor through Sculpture Co.
'In Rapiti Tantanaku / Rabbit & Club, each artist presents a bronze distinctive of their practice. Tylor’s work has long been concerned with the impact of colonisation in Australia and the relearning of Kaurna culture and language. The Tankanaku is a Kaurna club used for fighting and hunting.
In Selleck’s practice, the rabbit has repeatedly been used as a motif for exploring the complexity of animal and environmental ethics on a continent of forced ecological change.
Here, a cast of a feral rabbit lies with a traditional Kaurna Tantanaku club. Together, they physically and symbolically speak of the dramatic shifts here over the last two hundred years as well as the strength and resilience of First Nations’ cultures in the face of the colonial legacy.'
Sculpture Co. is presenting a limited editions project, commissioning the most dynamic contemporary artists to create unique and collectable domestic-scale sculptures.
Rapiti Tantanaku / Rabbit & Club
Collaborative work with James Tylor through Sculpture Co.
'In Rapiti Tantanaku / Rabbit & Club, each artist presents a bronze distinctive of their practice. Tylor’s work has long been concerned with the impact of colonisation in Australia and the relearning of Kaurna culture and language. The Tankanaku is a Kaurna club used for fighting and hunting.
In Selleck’s practice, the rabbit has repeatedly been used as a motif for exploring the complexity of animal and environmental ethics on a continent of forced ecological change.
Here, a cast of a feral rabbit lies with a traditional Kaurna Tantanaku club. Together, they physically and symbolically speak of the dramatic shifts here over the last two hundred years as well as the strength and resilience of First Nations’ cultures in the face of the colonial legacy.'
Sculpture Co. is presenting a limited editions project, commissioning the most dynamic contemporary artists to create unique and collectable domestic-scale sculptures.
JAMES TYLOR AND REBECCA SELLECK
Rapiti Tantanaku / Rabbit & Club, 2021
Bronze, velvet, soft fill
90 x 72 x 40cm
Edition of 8.
Available through Sculpture Co.
Rapiti Tantanaku / Rabbit & Club, 2021
Bronze, velvet, soft fill
90 x 72 x 40cm
Edition of 8.
Available through Sculpture Co.
Young eastern grey
Driving through national park on a scenic route home following the fires we slowed to a stop as the form of an eastern grey kangaroo appeared ahead. She’d been hit and left on the road. I stayed in the car with our infant son as my partner went to check on her. I heard a dull thud before I saw him in the side mirror pulling her off the road to the base of a young eucalypt. It felt like minutes before he returned, knocking gently on my window with downcast eyes and small form in his arms. The joey was limp, but still warm despite the cold day, and with a trace of breath and a heartbeat. Rifling through our luggage in the boot I found my son’s koala themed towel and together we wrapped him up. There was no reception out there. I cradled him close as we continued driving towards Canberra in the vain hope of getting him to the closest person who would help. I could feel the distance growing between him and his mum. And then it wasn’t too long before there weren't any more breaths or heartbeats, but I kept holding him close.
In the backseat my beautiful son slept through all of it. He was ten months old and, since discovering his heart and lung issues at birth, had spent half his life in hospitals through multiple surgeries, recoveries and declines. He was doing reasonably well by this point, with everything possible being done to help him. I held that joey like my son, quietly crying for the distance between him and his mother and the value that was placed on each of them.
My work has always been concerned with the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics in Australia, but our disconnect never felt so real or agonising as it did in that moment. It was too much to keep inside. I invite you to sit with the joey, now a gleaming form on a soft bench sheltered under a eucalypt sapling. I hope that he makes you feel something. His original form is back with his mum now lost along that scenic route.
Driving through national park on a scenic route home following the fires we slowed to a stop as the form of an eastern grey kangaroo appeared ahead. She’d been hit and left on the road. I stayed in the car with our infant son as my partner went to check on her. I heard a dull thud before I saw him in the side mirror pulling her off the road to the base of a young eucalypt. It felt like minutes before he returned, knocking gently on my window with downcast eyes and small form in his arms. The joey was limp, but still warm despite the cold day, and with a trace of breath and a heartbeat. Rifling through our luggage in the boot I found my son’s koala themed towel and together we wrapped him up. There was no reception out there. I cradled him close as we continued driving towards Canberra in the vain hope of getting him to the closest person who would help. I could feel the distance growing between him and his mum. And then it wasn’t too long before there weren't any more breaths or heartbeats, but I kept holding him close.
In the backseat my beautiful son slept through all of it. He was ten months old and, since discovering his heart and lung issues at birth, had spent half his life in hospitals through multiple surgeries, recoveries and declines. He was doing reasonably well by this point, with everything possible being done to help him. I held that joey like my son, quietly crying for the distance between him and his mother and the value that was placed on each of them.
My work has always been concerned with the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics in Australia, but our disconnect never felt so real or agonising as it did in that moment. It was too much to keep inside. I invite you to sit with the joey, now a gleaming form on a soft bench sheltered under a eucalypt sapling. I hope that he makes you feel something. His original form is back with his mum now lost along that scenic route.
Young eastern grey, 2021
Bronze, Australian indigenous timbers, found velvet, synthetic wadding
105 x 105 x 175cm
Bronze, Australian indigenous timbers, found velvet, synthetic wadding
105 x 105 x 175cm
Inhabiting (in collaboration with James Tylor)
As a new family we trace our way through shifting realities, seeking a sense of place within the Australian landscape as our private scenes play out against a backdrop of ecological crises and political uncertainty.
Through this series of domestic furniture and their accompanying photographs, we intertwine our contemporary family experience with Australia’s cultural and environmental history.
Drawing on our family’s intercultural heritage, the work seeks to highlight the balance our Aboriginal ancestors had with Country, the harsh impact of British colonial rule and the influence of new immigrant families.
Invasive, 2021
Australian indigenous timbers, bronze, eastern grey kangaroo skins, animal fat, patina
Dimensions variable
Australian indigenous timbers, bronze, eastern grey kangaroo skins, animal fat, patina
Dimensions variable
Snow rabbits (remade from 2018)
Snow Rabbits is part of an ongoing series that deliberates on our fraught colonial history with introduced species, in this case rabbits, and reflect on the complexity of animal and environmental ethics. Australia’s capricious relationship with rabbits led to a tug-of-war between a booming fur trade and the obliteration of farming land for colonists. Despite the eventual success of man-made viruses to reduce their numbers, we continue to see the devastating impacts of rabbits on Australia’s ecosystems. More recently they have adapted to survive on the toxic leaves of snow gum saplings in the Snowy Mountains, allowing them to survive altitudes above 1500 metres, which was their previous natural limit.
The installation includes a group of rabbit-like forms that have been made from used rabbit skin coats – each containing animatronics that suggest life by simulating the appearance of ‘breathing’. The rabbits ‘breathe’ using makeshift camshafts driven by geared motors that push and pull, and are arranged huddled together at the centre of a section of carpet in the safety of a wooden chair merged with a cast resin Snow Gum replica. These uncanny rabbits allude to the evolutionary processes of adaptation to new environments. Combined with the Eucalypt elements, they highlight the tension between invasive and endemic species continuing from colonisation. The merging of a familiar domestic scene with its external landscape point to the human culpability of these environmental changes.
I remade this 2018 work, Snow Rabbits, to last the three year tour, recreating the living tree with cast resin snow gum leaves and a replica trunk made of steel, epoxy putties and layers of spray paint. The breathing rabbits have been upgraded with new mechanics and fibreglass shells.
Snow Rabbits is part of an ongoing series that deliberates on our fraught colonial history with introduced species, in this case rabbits, and reflect on the complexity of animal and environmental ethics. Australia’s capricious relationship with rabbits led to a tug-of-war between a booming fur trade and the obliteration of farming land for colonists. Despite the eventual success of man-made viruses to reduce their numbers, we continue to see the devastating impacts of rabbits on Australia’s ecosystems. More recently they have adapted to survive on the toxic leaves of snow gum saplings in the Snowy Mountains, allowing them to survive altitudes above 1500 metres, which was their previous natural limit.
The installation includes a group of rabbit-like forms that have been made from used rabbit skin coats – each containing animatronics that suggest life by simulating the appearance of ‘breathing’. The rabbits ‘breathe’ using makeshift camshafts driven by geared motors that push and pull, and are arranged huddled together at the centre of a section of carpet in the safety of a wooden chair merged with a cast resin Snow Gum replica. These uncanny rabbits allude to the evolutionary processes of adaptation to new environments. Combined with the Eucalypt elements, they highlight the tension between invasive and endemic species continuing from colonisation. The merging of a familiar domestic scene with its external landscape point to the human culpability of these environmental changes.
I remade this 2018 work, Snow Rabbits, to last the three year tour, recreating the living tree with cast resin snow gum leaves and a replica trunk made of steel, epoxy putties and layers of spray paint. The breathing rabbits have been upgraded with new mechanics and fibreglass shells.
Snow Rabbits, 2018/2020
Used rabbit fur coats, found objects, eucalyptus pauciflora, cast polyurethane resin, epoxy resin, steel, motors, electrics, padding, enamel paint
200 x 140 x 140 cm
See the work on tour.
Used rabbit fur coats, found objects, eucalyptus pauciflora, cast polyurethane resin, epoxy resin, steel, motors, electrics, padding, enamel paint
200 x 140 x 140 cm
See the work on tour.
Sleeping fox
Removed from my larger installations, this fox tells its own story. Shining gold in the sunlight, their peaceful form forever rests. Foxes were introduced in Australia during colonisation to be shot for sport. They are smart and social animals who have done well here, becoming apex predators and devastating local biodiversity. Too many native species have been pushed to extinction or into remote pockets of habitat. Foxes are routinely shot, poisoned, trapped, and gassed. A hobby hunter shot this fox on a farm where he was contracted and texted me the next morning for pick up. Making the mold made my heart so heavy. The consequences of human interference in this landscape over the last couple hundred years feels pretty real when you're casting an animal brought here to die, which took everything else down with them on the way.
Removed from my larger installations, this fox tells its own story. Shining gold in the sunlight, their peaceful form forever rests. Foxes were introduced in Australia during colonisation to be shot for sport. They are smart and social animals who have done well here, becoming apex predators and devastating local biodiversity. Too many native species have been pushed to extinction or into remote pockets of habitat. Foxes are routinely shot, poisoned, trapped, and gassed. A hobby hunter shot this fox on a farm where he was contracted and texted me the next morning for pick up. Making the mold made my heart so heavy. The consequences of human interference in this landscape over the last couple hundred years feels pretty real when you're casting an animal brought here to die, which took everything else down with them on the way.
Sleeping fox, 2021
Polished bronze, sealant
73cm x 40cm x 8cm
Edition of 5
Available through Stockroom Kyneton.
Polished bronze, sealant
73cm x 40cm x 8cm
Edition of 5
Available through Stockroom Kyneton.
Invisible rabbit
Wild rabbits have become part of the landscape in Australia since being introduced during colonisation for hunting, food and fur. Sweet but prolific, they’ve pushed out native species and destroyed vegetation, becoming the world’s most successful invasive mammal species. They are shot, trapped, fumigated, have their warrens destroyed and have been met with numerous rounds of biological warfare. Their history here in a short couple of centuries is complex and painful on multiple sides. This young rabbit was shot by a hobby hunter. My heart sat sunken making this mold. Cast clear, they are both invisible and ever present as they suck in the light and colour around them.
Wild rabbits have become part of the landscape in Australia since being introduced during colonisation for hunting, food and fur. Sweet but prolific, they’ve pushed out native species and destroyed vegetation, becoming the world’s most successful invasive mammal species. They are shot, trapped, fumigated, have their warrens destroyed and have been met with numerous rounds of biological warfare. Their history here in a short couple of centuries is complex and painful on multiple sides. This young rabbit was shot by a hobby hunter. My heart sat sunken making this mold. Cast clear, they are both invisible and ever present as they suck in the light and colour around them.
Invisible Rabbit, 2021
Polyurethane resin, edition of 10
5.5 x 15.5 x 33 cm
Available through Stockroom Kyneton.
Polyurethane resin, edition of 10
5.5 x 15.5 x 33 cm
Available through Stockroom Kyneton.
2020
Invasive (Third Iteration at the Mixing Room Gallery as part of Contour 556, Canberra)
Since I was a small child, I’ve been fascinated by the inconsistent relationships humans have with other animals. We easily empathise with them on the one hand, but disengage on the other: denying them agency and treating them as objects. I use my ongoing practice to reciprocally investigate and challenge my own perceptions within a culture of conflicting truths. I’ve formed a specific sculptural language that gives communicable presence to the moment my conflicting perceptions and their accompanying sensations clash: The push and pull of empathy and disengagement that results in perceptual dissonance.
‘Invasive’ is the latest installation in this continuing exploration. In Australia, we have an interesting relationship with introduced species. Many that dominate the landscape today as pests or indentured species were brought over with the First Fleet as means to create industry. But, as species that didn’t evolve with the land, they have become another layer of forced environmental change that has had enduring consequences. Despite the mass destruction of complex ecosystems from the introduction of unsuitable livestock, crops, and farming methods onto an already well-managed continent, the husbandry of animals such as cows and sheep has become part of our national identity. A notion of taming a wild landscape that has endured.
In this immersive installation, the gallery is transformed into the interior of a small home where time and space have uncomfortably entangled to embody hypocrisies evident within our national identity. You’re invited to interact with the work and animal forms activated by breath, body warmth and displaced movement. Using a mix of found objects, bronze casts, electronics, sound and printed motifs, the installation overlays time and place to express the need for human accountability and the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics in Australia. Through these physical expressions of internal hypocrisies, I hope to create interactive spaces that, while uncomfortable, become their own questioning entities.
Since I was a small child, I’ve been fascinated by the inconsistent relationships humans have with other animals. We easily empathise with them on the one hand, but disengage on the other: denying them agency and treating them as objects. I use my ongoing practice to reciprocally investigate and challenge my own perceptions within a culture of conflicting truths. I’ve formed a specific sculptural language that gives communicable presence to the moment my conflicting perceptions and their accompanying sensations clash: The push and pull of empathy and disengagement that results in perceptual dissonance.
‘Invasive’ is the latest installation in this continuing exploration. In Australia, we have an interesting relationship with introduced species. Many that dominate the landscape today as pests or indentured species were brought over with the First Fleet as means to create industry. But, as species that didn’t evolve with the land, they have become another layer of forced environmental change that has had enduring consequences. Despite the mass destruction of complex ecosystems from the introduction of unsuitable livestock, crops, and farming methods onto an already well-managed continent, the husbandry of animals such as cows and sheep has become part of our national identity. A notion of taming a wild landscape that has endured.
In this immersive installation, the gallery is transformed into the interior of a small home where time and space have uncomfortably entangled to embody hypocrisies evident within our national identity. You’re invited to interact with the work and animal forms activated by breath, body warmth and displaced movement. Using a mix of found objects, bronze casts, electronics, sound and printed motifs, the installation overlays time and place to express the need for human accountability and the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics in Australia. Through these physical expressions of internal hypocrisies, I hope to create interactive spaces that, while uncomfortable, become their own questioning entities.
Invasive (third iteration), 2019-20
Found objects, motors, electrics, pump, used cowhide rug, used sheepskin rug, used rabbit skin coats, found fox pelts, found historic images of common threatened and extinct Australian flora, bronze casts taken from Australian native fauna killed through urban incursions (eastern grey kangaroo and joey, eastern rosella, magpie, brushtail possum), collected sounds, local weeds including African lovegrass (eragrostis curvula), patersons curse (Echium plantagineum), Buchan weed (Hirschfeldia incana), and common storksbill (Erodium cicutarium), soil, water, steel, fabrics, synthetic stuffing, wood
534cm x 400cm
Found objects, motors, electrics, pump, used cowhide rug, used sheepskin rug, used rabbit skin coats, found fox pelts, found historic images of common threatened and extinct Australian flora, bronze casts taken from Australian native fauna killed through urban incursions (eastern grey kangaroo and joey, eastern rosella, magpie, brushtail possum), collected sounds, local weeds including African lovegrass (eragrostis curvula), patersons curse (Echium plantagineum), Buchan weed (Hirschfeldia incana), and common storksbill (Erodium cicutarium), soil, water, steel, fabrics, synthetic stuffing, wood
534cm x 400cm
The fire and the bristlebird
My work overlays time and place to express the need for human accountability and the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics in Australia.
Since colonisation, we’ve lost an overwhelming amount of unique flora and fauna. This trend continues as whole species become collateral in the churning gears of perpetual economic growth. The Black Summer megafires affected over three billion animals and, despite being one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history, have already faded from the ether.
I can’t help but feel connected to the Eastern Bristlebird. This impossibly shy, seemingly unremarkable little brown bird has just a few geographically separate areas of habitat along the east coast left. They don’t fly, but dart through the cover of their heathland homes wiggling their tail feathers and calling to each other once a year to find a mate.
Their low numbers were thought stable until the megafires extensively destroyed their habitat in Nadgee Nature Reserve. Emerging from the blackness isn’t a reassessment of the value systems and land management practices that brought us here, but the revelation of a reality where the shy brown birds that make up our complex ecosystems can be sacrificed to the ‘new norm'.
My work overlays time and place to express the need for human accountability and the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics in Australia.
Since colonisation, we’ve lost an overwhelming amount of unique flora and fauna. This trend continues as whole species become collateral in the churning gears of perpetual economic growth. The Black Summer megafires affected over three billion animals and, despite being one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history, have already faded from the ether.
I can’t help but feel connected to the Eastern Bristlebird. This impossibly shy, seemingly unremarkable little brown bird has just a few geographically separate areas of habitat along the east coast left. They don’t fly, but dart through the cover of their heathland homes wiggling their tail feathers and calling to each other once a year to find a mate.
Their low numbers were thought stable until the megafires extensively destroyed their habitat in Nadgee Nature Reserve. Emerging from the blackness isn’t a reassessment of the value systems and land management practices that brought us here, but the revelation of a reality where the shy brown birds that make up our complex ecosystems can be sacrificed to the ‘new norm'.
The fire and the bristlebird, 2020
Bronze and ash cold cast of an Eastern Bristlebird, bronze casts of fallen flora from Nadgee EBB habitat, burnt eucalyptus obliqua, found velvet, patina, soft fill
63 x 33 x 33cm
Bronze and ash cold cast of an Eastern Bristlebird, bronze casts of fallen flora from Nadgee EBB habitat, burnt eucalyptus obliqua, found velvet, patina, soft fill
63 x 33 x 33cm
2019
The fox and the bristlebird
I’ve always been entranced by the inconsistent relationships humans have with other animals. I use my ongoing practice to investigate and challenge my own perceptions within this culture of conflicting truths. My work overlays time and place to express the need for human accountability and the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics in Australia.
Since colonisation, we have lost an overwhelming amount of unique plant and animal life. This is a continuing trend as whole species become collateral in the churning gears of perpetual economic growth. Resources are extracted, housing developments expanded, and ecosystems wiped clean for introduced species to turn us a profit. There are so many mistakes that remain unchecked. So much that goes unseen and unheard.
I can’t help but feel connected to the Eastern Bristlebird. This impossibly shy, seemingly unremarkable little brown bird has just a few geographically separate areas of habitat along the east coast left. They don’t fly, but dart through the cover of their heathland homes wiggling their tail feathers and calling to each other once a year to try and find a mate. Their immediate threats are clear: predation from foxes and feral cats, uncontrolled fires, and encroaching development. When it comes down to it, we are their biggest threat. I hope that this work can express the historically complex situation surrounding this inconspicuous bird, the ethical struggles, and the wider scale of human accountability.
This work was the result of my Art of Threatened Species residency with the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage and Orana Arts, in recognition of the Saving Our Species program.
I’ve always been entranced by the inconsistent relationships humans have with other animals. I use my ongoing practice to investigate and challenge my own perceptions within this culture of conflicting truths. My work overlays time and place to express the need for human accountability and the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics in Australia.
Since colonisation, we have lost an overwhelming amount of unique plant and animal life. This is a continuing trend as whole species become collateral in the churning gears of perpetual economic growth. Resources are extracted, housing developments expanded, and ecosystems wiped clean for introduced species to turn us a profit. There are so many mistakes that remain unchecked. So much that goes unseen and unheard.
I can’t help but feel connected to the Eastern Bristlebird. This impossibly shy, seemingly unremarkable little brown bird has just a few geographically separate areas of habitat along the east coast left. They don’t fly, but dart through the cover of their heathland homes wiggling their tail feathers and calling to each other once a year to try and find a mate. Their immediate threats are clear: predation from foxes and feral cats, uncontrolled fires, and encroaching development. When it comes down to it, we are their biggest threat. I hope that this work can express the historically complex situation surrounding this inconspicuous bird, the ethical struggles, and the wider scale of human accountability.
This work was the result of my Art of Threatened Species residency with the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage and Orana Arts, in recognition of the Saving Our Species program.
The fox and the bristlebird, 2019
Found objects, velvet, bronze and cold cast bronze casts of an Eastern Bristlebird, fox, and flora and fungi from EBB habitat
60cm x 93cm x 120cm
Collection of the Western Plains Cultural Centre
Found objects, velvet, bronze and cold cast bronze casts of an Eastern Bristlebird, fox, and flora and fungi from EBB habitat
60cm x 93cm x 120cm
Collection of the Western Plains Cultural Centre
Invasive (second iteration at M16 Artspace, Canberra)
Invasive (second iteration), 2019
Found objects, used cowhide rug, used sheepskin rug, used rabbit skin coats, found fox pelts, found historic images of common threatened and extinct Australian flora, bronze casts taken from Australian native fauna killed through urban incursions (three month old eastern grey kangaroo joey, eastern grey kangaroo, eastern rosella, magpie, eastern bristlebird, brushtail possum), collected sounds, English ivy, soil, water, motors, electrics, heat conductive wiring, pump, steel, fabrics, synthetic stuffing, wood
600cm x 420cm
Found objects, used cowhide rug, used sheepskin rug, used rabbit skin coats, found fox pelts, found historic images of common threatened and extinct Australian flora, bronze casts taken from Australian native fauna killed through urban incursions (three month old eastern grey kangaroo joey, eastern grey kangaroo, eastern rosella, magpie, eastern bristlebird, brushtail possum), collected sounds, English ivy, soil, water, motors, electrics, heat conductive wiring, pump, steel, fabrics, synthetic stuffing, wood
600cm x 420cm
Invasive (first iteration at Firstdraft, Sydney)
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Invasive, 2019
Found objects, used cowhide rug, used rabbit skin coats, found fox pelts, found historic images of common threatened and extinct Australian flora, bronze casts taken from Australian native fauna killed through urban incursions (three month old Eastern Grey kangaroo joey, Eastern Grey kangaroo, Rosella), water, motors, electrics, heat conductive wiring, pump, steel, fabrics, synthetic stuffing, wood.
Found objects, used cowhide rug, used rabbit skin coats, found fox pelts, found historic images of common threatened and extinct Australian flora, bronze casts taken from Australian native fauna killed through urban incursions (three month old Eastern Grey kangaroo joey, Eastern Grey kangaroo, Rosella), water, motors, electrics, heat conductive wiring, pump, steel, fabrics, synthetic stuffing, wood.
Falling from the skies (of least concern)
I use my ongoing practice to reciprocally investigate and challenge my own perceptions within a culture of conflicting truths, creating work that expresses the need for human accountability and the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics in Australia. On this continent of dramatic forced ecological change, where the farming of introduced species, extraction of resources, and increasing urbanisation have become paramount, we’ve come to think of our endemic species in terms of of presence and loss. A scale that ranges from least concern to complete extinction. As we continue to walk this precarious path and conflicting values are nullified, we’ve come closer tipping the balance.
I use my ongoing practice to reciprocally investigate and challenge my own perceptions within a culture of conflicting truths, creating work that expresses the need for human accountability and the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics in Australia. On this continent of dramatic forced ecological change, where the farming of introduced species, extraction of resources, and increasing urbanisation have become paramount, we’ve come to think of our endemic species in terms of of presence and loss. A scale that ranges from least concern to complete extinction. As we continue to walk this precarious path and conflicting values are nullified, we’ve come closer tipping the balance.
Falling from the skies (of least concern), 2019
Polyurethane resin cast of an eastern rosella, found velvet, cotton thread, synthetic stuffing
300 x 240 x 100mm
Edition of 10
Polyurethane resin cast of an eastern rosella, found velvet, cotton thread, synthetic stuffing
300 x 240 x 100mm
Edition of 10
2018
The control of nature promised a future of unlimited abundance
I made these works during my residency at Fremantle Art Centre in October 2018. The cast forms are taken from single use trash I found on my walks and contained within the resin are flora endemic to WA. You can read more about it here in an interview I had with FAC.
I made these works during my residency at Fremantle Art Centre in October 2018. The cast forms are taken from single use trash I found on my walks and contained within the resin are flora endemic to WA. You can read more about it here in an interview I had with FAC.
The control of nature promised a future of unlimited abundance, 2018
Cast polyurethane resin and WA endemic flora
Cast polyurethane resin and WA endemic flora
Waterhole
This interactive installation intertwines the significance of water in Australia and the layers of forced environmental change since colonisation that led to mass decline in biodiversity. It overlays time and place to express the need for human accountability and the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics.
Waterhole, 2018
Found objects, used rabbit skin coats, found historic images of common threatened and extinct Australian flora, electrics, heat conductive wiring, fencing steel, polyester, synthetic stuffing, water, pump, wood
210cm x 170cm x 90cm
Found objects, used rabbit skin coats, found historic images of common threatened and extinct Australian flora, electrics, heat conductive wiring, fencing steel, polyester, synthetic stuffing, water, pump, wood
210cm x 170cm x 90cm
Cow in the wattle
Since I was a small child, I’ve been fascinated by the inconsistent relationships humans have with other animals. We easily empathise with them on the one hand, but disengage on the other: denying them agency and treating them as objects.
I use my ongoing practice to reciprocally investigate and challenge my own perceptions within a culture of incompatible truths. I’ve formed a specific sculptural language that gives communicable presence to the moment my conflicting perceptions and their accompanying sensations clash: The push and pull of empathy and disengagement that results in perceptual dissonance.
‘Cow in the wattle’ is the latest installation in this continuing exploration. In Australia we have an interesting relationship with cows. They are a docile species that we can empathise with and romanticise in scenic landscapes. They were brought over with the First Fleet to create industry around their meat and milk, but as an introduced species that didn’t evolve with the land they have become another layer of forced environmental change that has had enduring consequences. Despite the mass destruction of complex ecosystems from the introduction of numerous livestock, crops, and farming methods onto a well-managed continent, the husbandry of animals such as the cow has become part of our national identity. A notion of taming a wild landscape that has endured. Today there are around 28,000,000 cows at a time in Australia living as an indentured species.
I invite viewers to enter the installation space and sit with the warm, breathing cow form amongst the dead wattles. The found skin holds the ongoing agency of the cow beyond death and speaks of its placement on a hierarchy as a commercial object. ‘Cow in the wattle’ overlays time and place to express the need for human accountability and the painful complexity of animal and environmental ethics.
Cow in the wattle, 2018
Found objects, used cow skin rug, steel, electrics, motor, heat conductive wiring
245cm x 245cm x 245cm at largest points
Found objects, used cow skin rug, steel, electrics, motor, heat conductive wiring
245cm x 245cm x 245cm at largest points
Snow rabbits
Since I was a small child, I’ve been entranced by the inconsistent relationships humans have with other animals. I use my ongoing practice to reciprocally investigate and challenge my own perceptions within this culture of conflicting truths as we teeter between empathy, disconnection and malice. Rabbits, as pest, product and friend, have manifold meaning to us in Australia. Originally introduced during colonisation to make settlers feel more at home, they are another layer of forced environmental change that has had enduring and destructive consequences. By 1910 rabbits had reached a natural limit of about 1500m above sea level, but in recent years they have been rising higher into the Snowy Mountains having evolved to survive on the toxic leaves of eucalyptus saplings. This living work overlays time and place to express the complexity of animal and environmental ethics, a need for human accountability and the continued resilience of both the invasive species and the misinterpreted environment they were introduced into.
Since I was a small child, I’ve been entranced by the inconsistent relationships humans have with other animals. I use my ongoing practice to reciprocally investigate and challenge my own perceptions within this culture of conflicting truths as we teeter between empathy, disconnection and malice. Rabbits, as pest, product and friend, have manifold meaning to us in Australia. Originally introduced during colonisation to make settlers feel more at home, they are another layer of forced environmental change that has had enduring and destructive consequences. By 1910 rabbits had reached a natural limit of about 1500m above sea level, but in recent years they have been rising higher into the Snowy Mountains having evolved to survive on the toxic leaves of eucalyptus saplings. This living work overlays time and place to express the complexity of animal and environmental ethics, a need for human accountability and the continued resilience of both the invasive species and the misinterpreted environment they were introduced into.
Snow Rabbits, 2018
140 x 140 x 195cm
Used rabbit fur coats, found objects, snow gums saplings, soil, steel, motors, electrics, padding
140 x 140 x 195cm
Used rabbit fur coats, found objects, snow gums saplings, soil, steel, motors, electrics, padding
2017
Sensory quilt
This work was commissioned by the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament for display in their children's exhibition, PlayUP. It's a soft sculpture sensory quilt made especially for children 0-2 years old and for kids with special sensory needs. Largely hand-sewn and made from pre-loved clothes and fabrics, it allows for concentrated exploration of colour, texture, pattern, dimension and density. I was inspired by living patterns and forms ranging from cellular to mammalian.
I wanted to create something for kids that would be exciting, stimulating and different, while still being comforting and safe. At a stage where the majority of their learning comes through physical exploration of their immediate environment, it was important to me that the quilt can provide kids with a really special experience.
It measures 2.1m x 2.1m and weighs 6.7kg.
This work was commissioned by the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament for display in their children's exhibition, PlayUP. It's a soft sculpture sensory quilt made especially for children 0-2 years old and for kids with special sensory needs. Largely hand-sewn and made from pre-loved clothes and fabrics, it allows for concentrated exploration of colour, texture, pattern, dimension and density. I was inspired by living patterns and forms ranging from cellular to mammalian.
I wanted to create something for kids that would be exciting, stimulating and different, while still being comforting and safe. At a stage where the majority of their learning comes through physical exploration of their immediate environment, it was important to me that the quilt can provide kids with a really special experience.
It measures 2.1m x 2.1m and weighs 6.7kg.
Sensory quilt
Second hand clothes and fabrics, soft fill, thread. 2.1m x 2.1m Collection of the Museum of Australian Democracy |
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Musical Miscellaneous Animals
The Musical Miscellaneous Animal series was created while on a residency to Fremantle Arts Centre and is made from various used commercial skins. The forms are meant to be held close while you wind their music boxes inside. In the video below, I used stop motion as a secondary means of reanimation.
The Musical Miscellaneous Animal series was created while on a residency to Fremantle Arts Centre and is made from various used commercial skins. The forms are meant to be held close while you wind their music boxes inside. In the video below, I used stop motion as a secondary means of reanimation.
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Musical Miscellaneous Animals, 2017
Used items of commercial origin (rabbit skin coat, sheepskin pram liner, cow hide rug, kangaroo pelt, fox fur coat, reptile skin bag, mink coat, pig and lamb skin skirt) music box, wire, synthetic stuffing, polyester thread, found fabrics, wood, zinc weight.
Dimensions variable.
Used items of commercial origin (rabbit skin coat, sheepskin pram liner, cow hide rug, kangaroo pelt, fox fur coat, reptile skin bag, mink coat, pig and lamb skin skirt) music box, wire, synthetic stuffing, polyester thread, found fabrics, wood, zinc weight.
Dimensions variable.
Skin
My practice is the traversing of hypocrisies through action, a kind of masochistic movement through difficult materials. The skin of this tactile, breathing form is made from my old leather clothes and it traces together a history of the original animals and their second lives as an extension of the human body. Through this partial self-portrait, I question the ubiquitous use of leather in our society and our disconnection from its origins. It is at once human and non-human, animal and object, powerful and futile. It pulls us into an uncomfortable space between empathy and disconnection.
My practice is the traversing of hypocrisies through action, a kind of masochistic movement through difficult materials. The skin of this tactile, breathing form is made from my old leather clothes and it traces together a history of the original animals and their second lives as an extension of the human body. Through this partial self-portrait, I question the ubiquitous use of leather in our society and our disconnection from its origins. It is at once human and non-human, animal and object, powerful and futile. It pulls us into an uncomfortable space between empathy and disconnection.
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Skin, 2017.
Artist's used leather garments, used hosiery, steel, planetary motor, electrics, plaster, used synthetic stuffing, polyester thread.
102cm x 44cm x 72cm
Artist's used leather garments, used hosiery, steel, planetary motor, electrics, plaster, used synthetic stuffing, polyester thread.
102cm x 44cm x 72cm
2016 - Lapin
Lapin Plague
Since I was a small child, I’ve been entranced by the inconsistent relationships humans have with other animals. We can easily empathise with them on the one hand, but disengage on the other: denying them agency and treating them as objects. Representations of non-human animals find their way into our perceptions, but rather than forming a smooth whole they exist in separate parts of our mind ready for appropriate contextual usage.
I use my ongoing practice to reciprocally investigate and challenge my own perceptions within a culture of conflicting truths. I have formed a specific sculptural language that gives communicable presence to the moment my conflicting perceptions and their accompanying sensations clash: The push and pull of empathy and disengagement that results in perceptual dissonance.
Rabbits, in particular, have manifold meaning to us. In ‘Lapin Plague’, I have blurred the contextual boundaries between pest, product and friend in a bodily experience, creating a strangely nostalgic space evocative of Australia’s European ties. I invite viewers to enter the constructed space and interact with the forms. They are soft and inexplicably warm, made from found rabbit fur coats over padded and wired skeletal steel armatures. These skins hold the ongoing agency of the rabbits beyond death and speak of a placement on a hierarchy as commercial objects. In their reappropriation through sculptural form, they are able to communicate a powerful presence to conflicting perceptions of non-human animals.
In plague like numbers they are still and vulnerable, returned a limited semblance of life through warmth and basic form, but lack communicatory organs and substance. They gravitate towards the central chairs, imprints of the human body and symbolic of how our communication constructs the physical and representational world around us.
Since I was a small child, I’ve been entranced by the inconsistent relationships humans have with other animals. We can easily empathise with them on the one hand, but disengage on the other: denying them agency and treating them as objects. Representations of non-human animals find their way into our perceptions, but rather than forming a smooth whole they exist in separate parts of our mind ready for appropriate contextual usage.
I use my ongoing practice to reciprocally investigate and challenge my own perceptions within a culture of conflicting truths. I have formed a specific sculptural language that gives communicable presence to the moment my conflicting perceptions and their accompanying sensations clash: The push and pull of empathy and disengagement that results in perceptual dissonance.
Rabbits, in particular, have manifold meaning to us. In ‘Lapin Plague’, I have blurred the contextual boundaries between pest, product and friend in a bodily experience, creating a strangely nostalgic space evocative of Australia’s European ties. I invite viewers to enter the constructed space and interact with the forms. They are soft and inexplicably warm, made from found rabbit fur coats over padded and wired skeletal steel armatures. These skins hold the ongoing agency of the rabbits beyond death and speak of a placement on a hierarchy as commercial objects. In their reappropriation through sculptural form, they are able to communicate a powerful presence to conflicting perceptions of non-human animals.
In plague like numbers they are still and vulnerable, returned a limited semblance of life through warmth and basic form, but lack communicatory organs and substance. They gravitate towards the central chairs, imprints of the human body and symbolic of how our communication constructs the physical and representational world around us.
Lapin Plague, 2016
Found rabbit skin coats, found carpet and underlay, found chairs, electrics, heat conductive wiring, steel, polyester, synthetic stuffing, enamel paint, plywood
120 x 800 x 500cm (approximately)
The forms in this piece are warm to the touch.
Found rabbit skin coats, found carpet and underlay, found chairs, electrics, heat conductive wiring, steel, polyester, synthetic stuffing, enamel paint, plywood
120 x 800 x 500cm (approximately)
The forms in this piece are warm to the touch.
Lapin Fam, 2016
Found rabbit skin coats, found rug, planetary motors, heat conductive wiring, electrics, steel, stainless steel, polyester, synthetic stuffing
135 x 300 x 200cm (approximately)
The forms in this piece are warm to the touch and simulate slow breath.
Found rabbit skin coats, found rug, planetary motors, heat conductive wiring, electrics, steel, stainless steel, polyester, synthetic stuffing
135 x 300 x 200cm (approximately)
The forms in this piece are warm to the touch and simulate slow breath.
2015 - Perceptual Dissonance
It’s been my aim to find a specific sculptural language that gives communicable presence to the moment my conflicting perceptions of non-human animals clash:
The push and pull of empathy and disengagement that results in perceptual dissonance.
I have explored this through the use of three primary devices: the skins of each animal returned basic form, domestic objects that create a psychological and bodily connection with the viewer, and finally through the use of basic electronics that create a semblance of life. These simulate breath, offer warmth, or create disembodied movement.
Fenkata/Watering Hole, 2015
Rabbit pelts, found objects, electrics, heated wiring, steel, fabric, synthetic stuffing
130 x 230 x 170cm (approximately)
The forms in this piece are warm to the touch.
Rabbit pelts, found objects, electrics, heated wiring, steel, fabric, synthetic stuffing
130 x 230 x 170cm (approximately)
The forms in this piece are warm to the touch.
Cow/Soft Toy, 2015
Cow hide, found objects, steel, plaster, cotton, insulation, synthetic stuffing, plastic, rubber, electronics
150 x 220 x 150cm (approximately)
The cow form simulates slow breath (click to see)
Photograph by Brenton McGeachie
Cow hide, found objects, steel, plaster, cotton, insulation, synthetic stuffing, plastic, rubber, electronics
150 x 220 x 150cm (approximately)
The cow form simulates slow breath (click to see)
Photograph by Brenton McGeachie
Lovers/Scoundrels, 2015
Fox pelts, found objects, electronics, steel, fabric, synthetic stuffing, wood, insulation, rubber
110 x 170 x 110cm
The chairs slowly rock back and forth (click to see)
Fox pelts, found objects, electronics, steel, fabric, synthetic stuffing, wood, insulation, rubber
110 x 170 x 110cm
The chairs slowly rock back and forth (click to see)
Rabbit Chair, 2015
Rabbit pelts, found chair, fabric, synthetic stuffing, foam
90 x 40 x 40cm
Rabbit pelts, found chair, fabric, synthetic stuffing, foam
90 x 40 x 40cm
Musical Rabbit, 2015
Rabbit pelt, found music box, synthetic stuffing
12 x 18 x 27cm
Rabbit pelt, found music box, synthetic stuffing
12 x 18 x 27cm
2014
From its beginnings, the diversification of life has offered numerous sensory means through which organisms can communicate with their kin, such as movement, sound, markings, bio-luminescence, scale or form. As social creatures, our intelligence has allowed us to process a widened range of information and extrapolate data from external events, creating complex communications and realities that can leap into the imaginary. We can extend our identification with those in our own social groupings to other species, and even across other life forms themselves to the inanimate. My works are an exploration of how humans interpret and feel information. I want the viewer to engage emphatically with my works. It is this connection with the inanimate that is of ultimate fascination to me.
Little Babes, 2014
Duck feathers from pillow, silicone, steel, electronics, batteries, fabric, plastic
16cm x 18cm x 24 & 14cm x 21cm x 16cm
(simulation of breath)
Duck feathers from pillow, silicone, steel, electronics, batteries, fabric, plastic
16cm x 18cm x 24 & 14cm x 21cm x 16cm
(simulation of breath)
Mother, 2014
Duck feathers from pillows, cast and carved porcelain, silicone, solar panels, LED lighting, stainless steel cable, wire.
800cm x 90cm at largest points.
Install shots at Jindabyne (Lakelight Sculpture) and Berrmagui (Sculpture on the Edge) March and April 2015.
Night photography by Chris Polglase.
Duck feathers from pillows, cast and carved porcelain, silicone, solar panels, LED lighting, stainless steel cable, wire.
800cm x 90cm at largest points.
Install shots at Jindabyne (Lakelight Sculpture) and Berrmagui (Sculpture on the Edge) March and April 2015.
Night photography by Chris Polglase.
Nest, 2014
Duck feathers from pillows, silicone, cast and carved ceramics, fabric, fishing line 250cm x 55cm at largest points |
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