Be prepared to experience happiness, chuckling, gasping and sober reflection as you stroll through the ANIMALS AND THEIR ART exhibition presented by The Sculptors Society. It runs until Sunday 29th November in the Art Space on The Concourse in Chatswood.
Thirty one pieces by twenty three artists involving joy, action, calm, drama, satire, political messages, grim reality, all appear through animal depiction using a wide variety of media. This review highlights a few of the pieces, though all have their own charm, message and often beauty.
There is movement with the surging Orca, a stunning sleek, large sculpture by Stephen Moxham. Peter Lewis’s Wild Hunter bronze black panther is about to spring and Sally Zylberberg glass and tile immediately appealing penguin with a striking coloured waistcoat asks us Shall We Dance.
Social, environmental and political commentary are highlighted in Angela Morrell’s Squattocracy, Meike Davis’s ceramic Fisherman draws us in to the book that the fisherman is reading before all his fish. Its environmental message is truly biting. John Brooke’s abstract blue dragon in welded steel tells us to chill.
Striking eyes which appear to be seeing through and past you belong to Helen Alajajian’s bronze dog Watching Her Puppies. Two cheeky mischievous black and white dogs, Amanda Harrison’s Best Mates, add an extra quirkiness to the exhibition. The humour is continued with Keith Chidzey’s mixed media Ornithological Defender, a sculptural golfing joke. The formal nature of the bust portraying someone’s head is satirised by Meike Davis as she selects a dog to represent a country and produces a bust of the animal’s head in La Parisienne.
Intimacy is depicted in the small bronze figures of child and dog in Larissa Smagarinsky’s Let’s Play. Calm descends in Ella Krug’s black walnut wood and ceramic white birds Birdsong an ultimately happy piece.
ANIMALS AND THEIR ART is interesting and appealing to both adults and children. It is well worth the visit. Of course later you can visit Chatswood’s shopping complexes, but I recommend you save your money for the sculptures.
The exhibition has free entry and is open Wednesday to Friday 11am to 5pm Saturday & Sunday 11am to 4pm until Sunday 29 November 2015 at the Art Space on the Concourse, The Concourse, 409 Victoria Avenue Chatswood.