Previously showing at Brenda May Gallery

The sculptures I create often embody mathematical principles related to dynamics and topology, as this provides a means of visualising their complexity via CAD. Gravity makes it difficult to use softer mediums, so there is an interesting tension between the ethereal, fluid intention and the often tedious manipulation of rigid metal. In a way, the manual process has become part of the intention and leaves a tangible trace of the tensile forces at work.

Helena Leslie?s exhibition continues the artist?s fascination with shadows in a series of delicate watercolours picturing scenes from found photographs and ephemera. The works draw on historical references and fragments of stories that have been removed from their original context to ?float? on the paper.

Capturing moments in time, the works are imbued with nostalgia and charm. Wrapped in the past, their subjects emerge both remembered and forgotten.

A few years ago my practice went through an important change as, rather than referencing the images of others, I began working from my own photographs. Friends became models and accepted various physical indignities to indulge my story-making impulses. Rich and unexpected things came out of these sessions with the photographs becoming an important part of my work process.

This process matured with the involvement of my wife, Trude. I wanted to dress the models in Liminal garments suggesting archaic themes, she responded by making a bonnet of twigs, a corset of cow ribs, a crown of bark, and on fully grasping my intentions she added so much more.

I now see the photographs as works in their own right as, although technically different, thematically they are a continuation of my visual obsessions.

I am attracted to hidden things: not just things that are well hidden, but things that are more subtly obscured, disguised in plain sight. I like to glean from my everyday observations, taking time to notice the details that prove themselves to be humorous, sly, tricksy and uplifting. I am taking time to paint moments and places that deserve more than a cursory glance, more than passing attention.

The Illumination works began when I was an artist-in- residence at Hill End in 2010. The archetypal Australian landscape that I encountered was overwhelmingly felt, along with the colonial histories imbued within. My ancestry is strongly connected to this region, dating to pre- 1850 when my ancestors arrived to secure pastoral leases on ‘uncharted’ land. These personal family histories, the broader history of the region and the European idealism projected upon this landscape became the focus of this new work.

Paper is such a commonplace and pervasive material. We write on it, read it, drink out of it and eat off it, yet in terms of conservation it is considered one of the most fragile of mediums in the art world.

This exhibition is ostensibly concerned with the nature of paper itself; featuring works produced with paper or about paper.

A sense of identity is grounded in our individual experiences that makes our own storytelling unique and also familiar. The cautionary tales that pervade everyday life are often ritualised into the cultural use of domestic objects, helping to construct collective and personal identities. Throughout this exhibition, the act of subverting such familiar ideas and items to reveal a sense of threat or violence is explored as a way of transforming and appropriating the familiar into fantasy, making visible the myths we live by.

Fantastic worlds and mystical dreamscapes enact the absurdity of human existence in my porcelain works, encaustic panels and prints. The works in this exhibition combine primordial plant forms such as yuccas, agaves and cacti, with fanciful figures and imagined landscapes. Magicians signal a quest, fantastic creatures interact and medieval monsters are guardians of future possibilities.

Inhabiting these small works are creatures from the Renaissance historia animalium of Conrad Gesner, humorous figures from 16th century French humanist and artist Fran?ois Rabelais, contemporary Japanese ?kawaii?, pop-imagination figures and toys and grotesque historical imagery. This cast of creatures and plants is combined to create various peculiar and curious scenarios. My characters live in a world where nothing is certain.

I feel like everything I want to say is written in the lines and planes of each piece. The repetitive physical process of carving translates my decisions and ideas into a subtle language, inherent in the finished form.

I found a stand of melaleuca clinging to the rocks along a wild stretch of beach on the north coast of NSW; branches twisted and deformed by an unforgiving wind; desiccated and brittle for want of water. Dead now, these trees bear witness to a life - like many other lives - on the edge, and a struggle to survive in less than ideal circumstances.

This melaleuca forest formed the starting point for the woodblock prints in this exhibition. In the working process I discovered that struggle can result in rich complexity, in elegance and grace.

New work by Josh Raymond.

This work is part of my continued exploration of geometric forms and the interplay between positive and negative space. I am also playing with the appearance of weightlessness, whilst continuing to use dense, industrial materials.

Brenda May Gallery will be exhibiting the work of three represented artists - Will Coles, Waratah Lahy and Mylyn Nguyen - at Art Stage Singapore.

This popular annual event was established by Brenda May at Access Gallery in 1998 and continues to be an important platform for the promotion of sculpture.

This year features the work of Senden Blackwood, Joel Bliss, Walter Brecely, Will Coles, Jim Croke, Marguerite Derricourt, Todd Fuller, Lyndal Hargrave, Kelly-Ann Lees, Barbara Licha, Simon Maberley, William Maguire, Angela McHarrie, Emily McIntosh, Brendan Murphy, Leslie Oliver, Arun Sharma, Benjamin Storch, Greer Taylor and Peter Tilley.

I continue to make work which references aspects of the human body.

Using process as an end and a means, and allowing for elements of human error, vigilant hand-eye co-ordination will underpin the performative nature of the work reflecting rhythm and movement.

When we consider objects, we identify them by their purpose. Having worked as a ceramicist for the last ten years, the making of objects for the everyday has been my life.

The idea of looking at objects and turning them into something else has always excited me. By playing with size, scale and function, we may find something that seems familiar, a little bit odd. Anything that is not where it belongs or where people normally think of it as being, can change perceptions of how we view things.

'Object, Odject' is the deconstruction of the everyday to challenge viewers to interpret something in a way in which it was not normally intended to be understood.

This is a journey through the everyday in the hope of finding the little magic that I used to carry with me on the train, in my backpack and the reserved special spot on my desk. But, the more I work; the Company car, the Company responsibility, the Company phone and the time spent on, in, and immersed in the Company, I can not seem to find the bear that I packed out of the way.

This is about the tiny little bit of moss that sits in the crack of the concrete footpath outside the office that reminds me that one day, I should stop working and go find bear.

Somewhere in between the active and the still,
the imagined and the real,
between light and shade, truth and tale, and of course
hope and defeat...
Between resting and at flight,
and somewhere between duty and desire,
that is where he stands,
this is where we find him.

Scale is often disregarded as a consideration when making sculpture when it shouldn't be, as it is just as vital as things like subject matter, materials and composition. These sculptures are not maquettes but are works that, hopefully, are comfortable at the size they are.

The decision-making process in these works is just as intense as it is with a larger piece; however, working on a small scale enables me to complete sculptures relatively quickly and thereby receive the rewards that a sense of completion provides. I've certainly enjoyed constructing these sculptures and I hope others enjoy seeing and experiencing the final works.

This body of work is a privately constructed environment that is a juxtaposition of unlikely objects; collectively a symbolic arrangement that both illustrates and defies the ordinary.

A characteristic quality evident is that the works are imbued with a certain stillness or calmness, not necessarily subdued or impassive but pensive and contemplative. There can be a sense of emptiness suggestive of the transient nature of life. A range of thematic ideas and formal strategies are employed, derived from a visual vocabulary that is readily understood. The objects, imagery and underlying narrative are universally common yet multi-layered in meaning, significance and complexity.

Peter Tilley, 2011

This exhibition will consider the representation of food within the visual arts and beyond the standard still life tableaux.

The consumption of food is a universally shared experience, enabling people viewing the exhibition to connect with the issues surrounding consumerism, food production and cultural identity.

'Art + Food: Beyond the Still Life' will be on view during the Crave Sydney International Food Festival.

My work continues to explore the Still Life and its place in contemporary Australian painting. I focus in particular on the sort of objects that might be found in the home. Sometimes this is because they are interesting in their own right, and other times it is because these objects act as symbols that suggest more ambiguous or contradictory meanings. Either way, there are rich traditions to build upon.

In this current series of work I look at the way the miscellany of things found in the household environment can comment on everyday life in Australia, from the small triumphs and tragedies, to all the ordinariness that lies somewhere in between.

Among the artists I most admire is Cézanne. In his mature years, he attempted to give underlying structure to his landscapes by rendering them in terms of cones, cylinders and spheres. As a pale homage to the Master, instead of copying his style or even attempting to apply his theory, I have found real structures that are in fact made from these simple geometric shapes. They are the grain silos and other agricultural and industrial structures that rise like gigantic monuments out of the vast western plains.