The winner! Hurrah!

Congratulations to Christina Frank who won the competition for her sculpture by the sink!

The next competition is 'doodle by the desk'. Check it out here

Airgalahs

 Thanks to Judith Werner for her artistic flight of fancy.

She talks of her work as an escape; "my office nook is windowless, so my flock of airgalahs encourage me that there is life out there and where there is life there is hope!"  She also adds "plus they require very little looking after."
The birds are consructed from items found in the recycle paper bin, sticks from the side of the road, blu tack and string.

Blue Tac Gumby Thinks

Composed entirely by blue tac, paper and ink, this Gumby-style sculpture is not just a creation, he is also a companion. The artist Miya Spears describes him as "a friendly, sturdy desk companion, and a great listener. He also looks forward to beer-o-clock on Fridays". 

Creation, discovery

This work was created by Erica Jobling, from a desk at the University of Sydney. But it was not just a crreation, it was also a discovery. Erica says "This piece uses various fastening devices found in my office drawer; to wit, 2 paperclips, 3 pins and a rubber band. I can now see why sculptors tend to use more substantial materials. This one kept falling over!"



'Sculpture by the Sink: dirty dishes with kitchen compost'

Christina Frank's work is very temporary. It is clear that the washing up must soon be done.

But it is also contemporary; the drudgery of everyday life needen't be a drain or a bore, it can also be a form of artistic expression.


Washing while you work

Julie Brown says of her work "I don't whistle while I work, I simply wash. Dwarfs optional.". The fusion of the domestic with the professional, against a backdrop of a children's cartoon,  emphasises the multi-faceted and layered nature of Julie's life and sculptural work.  Her internal struggle for balance is well represented by the angled shot of the phtotograph.

Chair with stuff on it and beside it, with a fan

This piece by Paul Bennett is entitled "Chair with stuff on it and beside it, with a fan".

It emphasises the juxtaposition and interface between art and the everyday. It almost seems as if this is just a pile of his clothes on a chair, and therein lies the brilliance and innovation of Bennett's artwork.

Sculpture by the sea meets it's match by Neil Grigg.

Neil Grigg works as a milliner and this sculpture is borne from mistakes made with his materials!

This piece, provisionally called " Sculpture by the sea meets it's match", is constructed almost completely with found material from the rubbish bin.

"Brims of hats I've scorched, quills I've cut wrongly, berry pins I've swept up and hot glue to hold it all together."

 On the left is a shot of the entire studio, to show the space around Neil, that he draws inspiration from.



Urban Sprawl by Bron Beard

"With this piece I have tried to highlight Sydney's struggle to keep up with it's growing population and failing infrastructure.
Made from packing foam, a blue plastic bag, gold thumb tacks, pins and coloured paperclips that have all been cluttering the desk in my study for some weeks now. On a clear day you can even make out the BluTack Mountains off in the distance."
 Bron Beard is a stay at home mum, but as is evident from her artwork, also a budding sculptor!


Can you stand the music?

This work is entitled Can you stand the music? by Annemarie Hennessy.
Annemarie says of her sculptural creation "a work demonstrating that many technologies are necessary for a full days work or a few minutes work at the desk..but they stand on the shoulders of romantic inventions of days gone by".


Signwriter without words

Murray Alford, the artist, describes his work and inspiration;

"As i work as a signwriter using a lot of vinyl, this piece is made up from old cardboard rolls (tubes that vinyl comes on) a lot of off cuts of vinyl, held together with cable ties and decorated with some 'weeded' vinyl from some signs i had to make.
This piece is inspired from Gaudi's Park Guell in Barcelona (a favorite of mine) with the use of a 'lot of colour', decorated with colourful 'pieces' on top of each tube, it stands about 1600mm high x 500mm wide.

Ordered Copics/Copic Chaos

Samantha Betbeder has used Copic markers to create a sculpture.  The artist says "I decided to use double sided tape to help them stand and make a spiral. However, soon after taking the photo my sculpture started to fall.  So I have now 2 sculptures."

The juxtaposition of the two pieces "Ordered Copics" and "Copic chaos" shows the fluidity and movement of Samatha's work, and emphasises how quickly art (and indeed life) and be reordered and restructured.


"Tony Abbott's Modem"

Justin Turner is an IT consultant, who continuously hears the question, "yeah, but can't we just do it wireless?".  This work is his response. The stark, roughly cut wires emphasise the strenght of his artistic response. 

Bound creatures abound.

The artist, Kylie Southwell describes her work; "These sculptures are made from recycled binding wire (the tangled mess of wire that results from a binding mishap). After making Chicken-Rabbit on a whim (it was meant to be a rabbit, but looked like a chicken... or the other way around), my sculptures soon became a hit around the office. As my binding mis-haps continued, the gallery of sculptures continued to grow into quite the menagerie. And that's how we ended up with Tina the Llama, Roger the Camel, Alan the Saltwater Crocodile, and many other animal sculptures in "the gallery", curated by my dedicated colleague, Phil."

Kylie's work emphasises how art and accident can be bound together, thus creating something that, like this wire, will remain forvever entwined.

Andrew Bacon. Paperclips, stickytape, paper.

According to the artist's mother, Wendy, who submitted this work;

"This piece is a comment on today's consumerist society and it's effect on the psychology of young women particularly focusing on 'body' consumerism as force 'fed' by the media in fashion magazines.  The bone shaped paperclips symbolise the body shape as projected by these media articles.  The paper smiling face displays the artificial brainwashing from the paper pages. The piece displays these feelings as an egregious reflection seen in todays female body."

Positive Affirmation Clock

Heather Noakes calls her piece the Positive Affirmation Clock. "These have been floating around on my desk and on the wall. They are notes to myself of life lessons I have learned. No time like the present to adopt them." 

Art naive with chair

Sabine and her father Michael have been to Sculptures by the Sea together every year since she was a toddler. Clearly inspired by what she has seen over the years, Sabine created this sculpture from the materials found in her favourite play space; the backyard.  Although she is still a child, she still felt the pull of the art world all by herself, and her creativity was only discovered by her father when he became suspicious of the entire lack of noise coming from the back garden and he went to investigate.

In this work she combines her own wellingtons and toys with adult sized green plastic chairs.  By placing the pink fluffy rabbit upon the pedestal of adult furniture, it is evident that although she embraces growing older, she still values her childish spirit above all else. 

Pencils, brush, flux.

Jessica Green is a graphic designer and currently an illustrator. The two photographs here showcase her sculptural work in a more intimate and direct format (above) as well as in it's natural desk habitat (below).   The use of the pencils in the artwork, as contruction materials, rather than tools to draw, shows a shift from Jessica's usual work. The use of bluetac as the binding force shows the temporary nature of this work, and suggests that she is likely to return the brush and pencils to their original use very soon. This photo captures a fleeting moment. By the time you read this, the materials may already be back in motion, creating a new artwork of their own.

Cold Clay Creation

Ashlea works in publishing, hence the backdrop of literary material in her work. 
She crafted her desk sculpture from found materials; namely some plasticine from a show bag at a publishing conference and branded publicity ribbon. The scarf reflects the excessively cool temperatures in their workspace. The work references the artwork of Art Clokey, and his clay creation 'Gumby'. There is an ambiguity in the representation, that could be seen as a pastiche and/or an homage to Clokey's work.

The DNA of ART. CDs on MDF. Work in Progress, Feb 2011.



By making the iconic Double Spiral of DNA from CDs, I'm alluding to the fact that all ART has its ancestors. Our work is born of the work that has been. We can no more escape the ART that has gone before than we can discard our own genes.  By using CDs which are simply lying around my desk or the office here at 702, I'm emphasising the dichotomy between the ARTIST'S desire for eternity and the ineluctable empheralness of the work itself. There is also a subtext of the dialogue between commerce and ART; between packaging and emotion. 
The DNA Spiral also suggest that there is only ART of the past and the ART that is to come.
Structurally I'm engaged in constructing two interlocking spirals that will support themselves. The challenge is to place the CDs to make the spiral and to bring the weight of the tower back in on itself. No adhesive is being used. ART made of ART. ART that needs only ART to survive.



Who needs flowers?

Susan Atkinson produces Robbie Buck's evening show.
But she's also a sculptor extradordinaire.
Here is the sculpture currently adorning her desk.
Who needs flowers when you have enough artistic flair to make leftover wire look glamorous?

"Non-white Noise"

This is my entry to the Sculpture by the Desk competition.
It's meant to look like a radio made out of things I found in my recycling bin!
It does look more like a collage made by a 10 year old, but I thought I should post it regardless.

In art speak, I would describe this artwork as a documentation of the way in which we live in a paper-driven society.
I wanted to also examine the way in which we rely on other resources, such as newspapers, and they form part of the fabric of what we produce.
The construction of a radio from layered newspaper cuttings, ABC stationary, post packages and media images shows the multi-dimensional aspect of radio. 
This suggests that radio distils other media; visual, textual, sensual; and allows an auditory representation of these experiences.

Send photographs of your desk sculptures to 702@your.abc.net.au
Chloe, 702 Afternoon Show Producer