Limestone Coast Sculptors Kamunde Sadiki, Ivo Tadic, and Mark de Nys present limestone, metal and wood in abstract and figurative forms in the Carve, Cut, Polish exhibition on show at the Riddoch Art Gallery.
Riddoch Art Gallery Director Dr Melentie Pandilovski said the artists have vastly diverse practices, with exhibited works providing thought provoking artefacts.
“We hope that this exhibition and the associated workshops to be held later this year, will assist in the creation of an artistic dialogue to help generate a stimulative environment for the development of sculpture throughout the Limestone Coast,” Dr Pandilovski said.
Bosnian born and Mount Gambier based Ivo Tadic is an artist who likes to explore the big picture. His eye-catching sculptures created during 2017 and 2018 could be considered as abstract and experimental in their form, but they also have a strong conceptual research element.
“Tadic’s works always provide for a stimulating conversation about the origin and nature of temporality, form, materiality, and spatiality, which includes thinking about the three-dimensional space his sculptures occupy, referring us to geometrical concepts such as flat plane, curved plane, solid object, bi-polar space, and infinity, in the final instance.”
Mount Gambier based Mark de Nys creates sculptures made from industrial materials such as metal. De Nys works in a minimalist fashion, presenting simplified and reduced geometric forms, referencing both the Dada and Assemblage techniques as well as using junk as a sculptural material.
“He uses objects he has found such as a clock mechanism and a hospital bedpan, in an unmistakeable Duchampian style. Exceptional treatment of shadow, light, and reflection, all play a part in the work which de Nys terms ‘Additive Sculpture’, putting an emphasis on the materiality of the works by smashing together different components in order to create a new and unique art-form,” Dr Pandilovski said.
Congo-born Kamunde Sadiki arrived to Australia in 2015, after spending 13 years in a refugee camp in Zambia. Sadiki has been inspired by the spiritual and artistic traditions of the African continent, as well as by the historical and contemporary political realities of Africa. In his work Sadiki sculpts in a figurative fashion and uses diverse materials ranging from wood to limestone.
“The subjects he depicts hold personal, symbolic, mythological, religious, or political significance of his lived experience, at moments touching on the sentimental and allegorical, such as the series depicting people from his village, which he sculpted by using black ebony wood.”
“In his work Sadiki references the Luba culture of the Congo, and especially the importance of the representation of women that is omnipresent in Luba art,” Dr Pandilovski said.
The public is invited to attend opening night on Friday 23 February at 6:00pm. The exhibition is on show in the Cathleen Edkins Gallery, Riddoch Art Gallery Gallery until Sunday 11 March 2018.
