“…sculpture on a small scale offers creative freedom to the artist and an intimacy with the viewer that traces a fresh and diverse path…”
– Louise Martin-Chew
Onespace Gallery is very pleased to present the next exhibition of our 2017 program – Public Aspirations: small sculptures/big ideas. Public Aspirations will exhibit an array of over 25 works from a stellar line-up of ten mid-career artists from Queensland and interstate:
James and Eleanor Avery; Ross Byers; Sebastian Di Mauro; Lucy Irvine; Casselle Mountford; Brian Robinson; Daniel Templeman; Matthew Tobin and Daniel Wallwork.
This exhibition comprises a range of sculptures that are resolved in their own right, but which also present as potential maquettes for more ambitious public art commissions. These works span both a variety of practice and media and their conceptual interests cover a similarly wide berth – art history; Torres Strait Island heritage and cultural practices; mapping and emergent knowledge technologies; redundancy of currency; and aspects of popular culture.
The exhibition will be open from Wednesday 22 March 2017 and to Saturday 22 April 2017. The official opening night will be held on Friday 24 March 2017 from 6–9pm.
Artists were selected for their engagement with, and embrace of, opportunities in the public realm. Some of the works in Public Aspirations were made either as maquettes for larger works, or remade on a small scale from an original large-scale commission. Onespace director John Stafford was driven by his observation that sculptors conceptualise form at a large scale (even when working small) and believes that “Small sculpture bears the optimism of what the artist often really wants to do.” However, works on a small scale offer variety in materials and ideas, the ability to edition work as multiples, a level of creative freedom, and an intimacy with the viewer that allows for a different approach to the ‘audiencing’ of public art.