introduction to conceptual installation art

well, i have just finished my three years in the field of fine arts at the university of wollongong. my major was in sculpture studio with some extensive and grueling theory on the side, i minored in Aboriginal studies also.

i love sculpture and installation art, it has opened me up to a whole new way to express myself. i have always hated 2d forms such as painting and drawing, they never satisfy me. what i was looking for in art was a mode to express myself that explicitly involved the audiences participation in the work. in my opinion i find that art galleries are so demanding of people in the space, restricting the visitors with guards that oversee the safety of the work and the invisible barrier that buzzes when you are too close to it. it is too uptight, too.... boring.

installation works are more about interpreting a space and giving it a new meaning or, in some cases, drawing out what that space is in itself. it makes us more aware of our environment. i think more people appreciate an art work that is interactive to a certain extent, one that allows you to enter an environment and be affected by what the artist constructs. one amazing artist that i have seen in the last year was Yayoi Kusama, pictured below is her work "fireflies on the water" which i have seen first hand. she is an amazing installation artist and if u ever hear she is exhibiting near you, you musnt miss it.

i also love Andy Goldsworthy and his earth sculptures and installation art. he dominantly uses nature and site specific works which manipulate materials to its extrodinary potential, natural splendor if you will. he is more conserned with the eb and flow of tides, curves and spirals in nature and the impermenancy of his works. below is one of his works with reconstruced icicles, and to think this beauty only lasts for a few hours is ever romantic, dont you think?

what i have worked with in my on installation, to sum it up, is the Indigenous experience of the post-colonial Australian world dealing mainly with diaspora, survival and the subsequent contemporary condition for Aboriginal peoples in this nation. i have taken elements of domesticity (flour, tea, sugar) from Aboriginal reserves and communities bought together by notions of minimalism to construct an installation art work which hopefully will inspire people to break their (non-Indig) perception of Indigenous experiences as fixed within stereotype. a lot of the time i like to experiment with food and alcohol culture and its important contribution to observing cultural histories. thus, i make food art!

this floor work is an extention on my "traditions known" series

what this is is flour, tea and raw sugar in grids, then it has plaster bricks (some covered in bible passages) and a line of sand running through it. what you cant gain from looking at this is the vanilla smell that permiates the air, yes, i used smell as a material for making an artwork, revolutionary right?!?! it could easily turn into a cake and tea if i used it in a defferent way minus the sand and plaster lol.

here have a little peak at Goldswothys works, its so inspiring.