Obtanium

David, our Artist in Residence if officially settled in and down to business! Over the next few months he will be sharing a little bit of his process and reuse love with us through the blog, and in person.

I love Obtainium.  Obtainium is anything that you can get your hands on cheap or even free, and Sydney's inner west has rich deposits everywhere.  It's a great material for making sculpture because it often suggests ideas that emerge directly from whatever happens to be in front of you.  Shuffle up a new combination of randomly selected parts and find a new idea.

Obtainium takes time to react.  This is my handy excuse for being off to a slow start these last couple of months, but it also happens to be true.  As part of my usual method, I tend to let collections of objects that 'might be useful one day' collect and stew in each others' juices for quite a while.  This habit has done nothing to earn me favor with my flatmates, so I'm very lucky to be the Bower's artist in residence right now.  Until about the middle of this year, I get to be surrounded by the kind of fascinating pile of stuff that I'd collect for myself if only it didn't get me in trouble at home.

I'm currently working on lamps, which are an ongoing obsession of mine.   There's something about lighting up an object that completely re-contextualizes it.  It's so simple it almost feels like cheating.  An ordinary light bulb can take a hatstand, a teapot and a stuffed mackerel and turn it into something that gives it's viewers a license to stare.  A reason to stop and contemplate the sculptural qualities of an unexpected combination.  There's something new in the whole that isn't inherent in any of the parts.  That's what interests me.  The emergent property.  The indefinable extra that I don't feel like I'm creating, but rather finding amongst the bits and pieces.

Of course, there is a element of work and routine to working like this.  Tedious cutting and grinding, gluing things together, and waiting for paint to dry.  During these times, I like to make little pieces to keep myself amused, like the ones pictured above.

I'm in the studio workshop and the Bower Sunday's and Mondays, so come on down and say Hi. 

Cheers,
Dave.