Sculptures Set To Take On Oceanic Proportions

By Marcus Braid on October 7, 2015 in

This year’s Sculpture by the Sea will have an all-encompassing continental appeal, with contributions from around Oceania featuring.

Founding director David Handley labelled Jeremy Sheehan’s ‘Trans Migration’ among the works to look out for on the Coastal Walk between Bondi and Tamarama from October 22 to November 8.

“It plays on this real concern of plastic in the ocean,” Mr Handley said. “Jeremy’s done this collaboration with 20 artists from around Oceania.

“Jeremy and his friends and family around Coffs Harbour have all gone out and found artists and communities around Oceania, from places such as the Philippines and PNG to Fiji.

“Jeremy has sent off to everyone a little kit, which is like a skeleton around which they then make birds from washed-up plastic from the beaches and coastlines of their islands and countries around Oceania. That’s going to be set up on the fence line around the Tama Surf Lifesaving Club.”

Marina De Briuf’s sculptural fashion shows shape as another popular feature of the exhibition, with sculptural dresses made from recycled and washed-up plastic on the beach on display. The fashion shows will be on at Tamarama Beach at select times during the exhibition.

“One of the smallest works in this year’s show is actually one of my favourites,” Mr Handley said. “It’s called ‘Eye’, and it’s a video work of an eye by a Danish artist, Anne Marie Pederson.”

Among the most visible of installations will be a flying fish that is held up by a rope at the end of Marks Park, just above the lookout. Another is ‘The Bottles’, which is a series of squirting water bottles that take on the appearance of giant penguins.

“There’s going to be half a dozen of those on Tamarama Beach,” Mr Handley said. “They’re huge; several metres high.

“Generally speaking, though, the scale isn’t as big this year. If there was to be any sort of trend, it’s the number of student collaborations. Usually there’s one each year, but this year there are three or four of them.”

Three new members will enter the Sculpture by the Sea ‘Decade Club’ – Margarita Sampson, Marcus Tatton and Paul Selwood – which is made up of artists who have been in the show ten times or more.

“The other thing we’ve been able to confirm is the three $30,000 Helen Lempriere scholarships,” Mr Handley said.

The equally maligned and celebrated Grounds of Alexandria pop-up café at Marks Park is expected to return after its successful debut installation last year.

“We’re hoping so,” Mr Handley said. “It’s just going through the approval process at the moment with Council.

“We didn’t end up getting much more out of it for our bottom line, and we knew that would be the case.”
Transport shapes as one of the challenges surrounding the exhibition, which attracted approximately 520,000 onlookers last year.

“We’re still trying to resolve what’s happening with the buses and parking for the exhibition,” Mr Handley said.

“It’s a good problem to have but it has become quite a problem. We’re still trying to work through how that’s going to be resolved.”

For more information about the 2015 Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, visit www.sculpturebythesea.com.