Featuring Rhys Bobridge, Dancer / Performer, St‘Terpsichore’s Tribute’ is a joyous exploration of the connection between sculpture and dance, artist and muse.

In Greek mythology, Terpsichore is the revered muse of dance and although almost forgotten now, she has called to artists through the centuries. (She was famously manifested by Olivia Newton-John’s heroine in the 1980 film Xanadu.) And so, this sculpture is a tribute to the divine inspiration of dance.

This group of sculptures not only references The Three Graces, but also the lineage of figures that has embodied higher aspirations. From lavish European Baroque altarpieces in Prague or Rome to outlandish Norman Lindsay orgies in the Australian bush, figures like these have appeared throughout art history. In ‘Terpsichore’s Tribute’, the joyous figures splash through Baroque clouds, buoyed by the weightless whipped cream of their heritage. They are bringing floral garlands to an unseen altar in a heavenly tribute to their seaside setting.

The sensuality of the forms and erotic interplay of the clouds owes more to ecstatic desire and pagan ritual than is commonly seen in contemporary artistic dialogue.

This work is inspired by the virtuoso performance of Rhys Bobridge in So You Think You Can Dance – Australia. Rhys is a dancer whose charisma, talent and dedication provide the riches of artistic inspiration befitting a traditional muse. His artful performance is sculpted and transformed through the artist’s imagination and ingenuity, and through apparently weightless contemporary materials, into a current retelling of the traditional artist/muse scenario.

This is my tribute to Terpsichore.

The Comrade's Reward takes the form of a traditional allegorical garden sculpture. This popular nineteenth century genre is reinterpreted in an eclectic and contemporary way as it deliberately references antiquity and unfashionable ideas of heroism and folly within a camp and knowing artifice.
The homoerotic revelry of the nude farmhand, his manhood coyly obscured, mischievously taunts accepted standards of taste and art history as he strides to take his place, and his reward, among the great male figures of European sculpture, refusing to be bound by the conservative and sexless mores of contemporary art.

Winner
2005 Helen Lemriere National Outdoor Sculpture Prize
$105,000.00

"The Comrade's Reward" is a contemporary sculpture imbued with classical form and history but informed by current philosophies and art theory. He reaps what has been sown before him, and thus his reward.

Synthetic Glazed Polymer Cement and bronze acorns
1600mm x 1200mm x 1000mm

'Eicholtz's Jumbuck' is a bejewelled and monolithic interpretation of the ironic Australian ram. He stands, handsomely, as a contemporary symbol for the bounty of the land and the diversity of Antipodean culture. His deciduous autumnal fleece of European oak leaves belies the impact of his hoof-print on the Australian culture, ostentatiously bringing his European prosperity into the Australian landscape. He speaks of a different heritage and legacy. His cement leaves are blown aside to reveal a bounty of crystal acorns; an unexpected produce like no other harvested from this land.

Polymer cement over polystyrene
with plastic gemstones and solar panel
3000 x 1600 x 1800 mm

As if pushed from heavenly pedestals and tumbled to earth, these cement sleeping busts lie in dreamlike ecstasy, reflecting each other on the stony hard pillows of a baroque mausoleum.

Winterstone (Polymer Cement)
1200 x 1600 x 900 mm
Hicks Collection

As if pushed from heavenly pedestals and tumbled to earth, these giant sleeping busts lie in dreamlike ecstasy, reflecting each other in their garden.

Winterstone (Polymer Cement)
1200 x 1600 x 900 mm
Exhibited at Sculpture by Sea, 2001

A second version, with rust-patinae hair, was shown to dramatic effect on the rugged Bondi to Tamarama walk.

Unethane over Polystyrene
4100 x 1800 x 1400 mm
Gasworks Sculpture Park
Winner 'Peoples Choice Award'

Surrounded by hundreds of plates stuck in the boggy garden pond, this elaborate rococo-esque figure labours at his task.

White Marble and light up gemstones
1200 x 450 x 500 mm

Inspired by oriental gateway figures these Australian icons stand their ground in a coy but knowing manner. Traditionally carved but audaciously wearing their jewel fruits and European heritage as oak leaf fleece, these brave antipodeans embrace a changing culture.

M1 Masterworks (Polymer Cement) with cast gemstones
3200 x 1200 x 800 mm

Passage 2003 St Kilda Botanical Gardens Contemporary Sculptors Association (http://home.vicnet.net.au/~sculptor) "After the Ploughboy" depicts a wistful sower casting his gemstone seeds upon fertile soil. This piece is a playful reworking of expectations of nineteenth century garden statuary, bringing it into a contemporary context.

Synthetic Glazed polymer cement
3500 mm h x 1400 mm w x 1100 mm d

McClelland Outdoor Sculpture Survey
…an Adonis astride a high Baroque pedestal in the form of a bedroom chest. He is a classical harvest hero, adorned in garlands, while the drawers spill forth an equally gleaming, yet artificial, bounty. The materials and scale allude to a deception; the ceramic façade appears substantial, while it is a perfectly turned out facsimile of fertility, preoccupied with playing boudoir games of eroticism and art. Like a European statue from another cultural time, this figure, so richly and deliberately adorned, is placed in the raw, virginal Australian bush. The landscape’s beauty is random, fertile and natural - in complete contrast to the sculpture’s manufactured artifice and theatrical abundance.

Polymer cement over polystyrene
with plastic gemstones and solar panel
3000 x 1600 x 1800 mm

Polymer Cement
Snail Fountain 1600 x 600 x 850 mm

Slimy-footed garden fountain triumphantly sprays in the air. (Model not included)