Judy Holding & Denese Oates
Sculpture 2015
28 January - 28 February
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JUDY HOLDING and DENESE OATES' sculptures translate organic, native and hybrid natural forms through industrial qualities of copper patina, rusted steel and paint. Both artists demonstrate a curiosity and concern for human relationships with wildlife in an age of environmental vulnerability and endangerment.
JUDY HOLDING draws particular interest from pre and post- colonial contexts of the Australian natural environment, as well as concern for its future. HOLDING identifies particular sets of imagery such as birds and native flora from "pre contact times" to the present. She describes the Australian landscape and its animal inhabitants in striking silhouettes and textures inspired by the bush. Such silhouettes are found in the rustic tactility of sculptural forms. The mix of natural and human-made materials in HOLDING's sculptures also draws attention to the impact that industrial scale agriculture, mining and water exaction is having on the ultimate fate of Australian land and its inhabitants.
DENESE OATES is a sculptor of considerable skill who transforms ordinary copper wire into inspired and carefully crafted objects that range from the biological to the botanical. Full of undulating movement and rhythmic lines, her organic forms convey the ebb and flow of nature. They remind us of its remarkable capacity to regenerate, proliferate and multiply into a myriad of exquisite forms. OATES is fascinated by contrasts and ambiguities, and by the human relationship with other living organisms. She captures flora in different stages of development, budding, sprouting, branching and tangling. OATES says she is "interested in the vulnerability of nature". Her manipulation of copper and patina suggests beauty in the wildness of nature and a sense of hope in new growth.
