Morphology

Morphology is an original one-of-a-kind hand made collage artwork made from coloured paper sourced from second hand magazines and meticulously constructed into a geometric design.

This artwork was the winner of the 2016 Blackheath Art Society Winter Open Exhibition, as judged by former director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Anthony Bond (OAM).

Of this artwork, Anthony Bond said:

“This very geometric abstract work looks at first as if it might be a digital construct and indeed it is possible some design work might owe something to a computer but on close inspection the fabrication of the pice is astonishingly manual. It is a collage of strips of coloured material cut to size and applied to create a vibrant three-dimensional composition.The design is certainly logical in that the basic elements are each expanded cubes throughout with sections cut out and expanded or exploded and yet the effect is magical. It seems to exist somewhere between M.C. Escher and Sol Lewitt. Both of these artists’ designs purport, or are indeed, logical mathematical propositions but both are somehow subverted by a mystical streak.

The American art historian Rosalind Krauss has written about the grid in modern art as an indicator of intellectual content but as in the case of Sol Lewitt she points out that the maths is basic and questionable and the success of the work is more about an obsessive and systematic process that she compares with Becket’s character Malone who spends his time moving pebbles from one pocket to another devising a system which would ensure that he never moved the same stone twice.

I enjoy the obsessive and meticulous nature of the fabrication and the strange expanded architectural structures that this artist has created. They may be logical and indeed they may be buildable in 3d but I doubt it.”

The work is finished with a glossy varnish and is ready to hang.

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For the last 30 years I have been making physical, analogue, hand-cut collage art using only found materials.

That is an important distinction to make. When sourcing materials my work I do not use any form of reproduction, copying or digital manipulation in any way. All of the elements, all of the images that I use in my artworks, have been collected from the pages of magazines, books and comics, or from other printed materials like pamphlets, posters or flyers. A large part of the process of creating these pieces lies in the collection of the components. That is the thrill of the hunt; looking for the right pieces to fit together in order to create these compositions. Once found, the images are then hand cut from the page, most often with the use of scissors.

Once the materials have been collected and the collage has been constructed, my artwork then undergoes a process of varnishing, which not only give the collage a nice finish but also vastly improves the permanence of the item. All of the work that you see here has been treated with many layers of varnish and then buffed to a smooth finish. I often complete these artworks with a glossy top coat that gives each piece a shiny lustre that greatly enhances the vibrancy of the colours.

My studio is in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, on Dharug and Gundungurra country.