Happy November! I can’t believe how fast the last 10 days have gone by – Halloween, our friends’ wedding, NYC for work, Esplanade benefit, houseguests – now we’re at November 6th – crazy! It was nice to get an extra hour of sleep last night and I’m pretty sure I spent that hour banging around on the internet. I came upon Robert Bridgewater of Victoria, Australia somewhere along the way.
Robert is no easy person to find information on but visually, I love his piece above, Covered Person. It looks like a person covered in woven stone. About the piece he states, “This work draws from medieval carvings representing chain mail armor and carries references to contemporary preoccupations with national and personal security, safety and insularity.” Pretty great.
Robert’s work seems fairly diverse from huge installations to smaller painted wood and even some metal works. Robert explains that he’s into the compulsive and repetitive of some labor and patterning from various traditions and designs. That sums up a lot of what I’m into here at the blog.
I love chevron as a pattern and this sort of antique-y red and white is a great blend.
Robert’s work appears to be represented by the Niagara Gallery in Australia, while I can’t find a site for him, their site is quite informative. The part I like best of their explanation of his work is, “his work shares the minimalist interest in structural formality, geometry, seriality and truth to materials while reflecting on the natural environment and phenomena.” His large installations remind me of traditional trail markers you find in say, Canada – they seem like something made 100s of years ago with hidden meanings.
The above is painted wood – I love the repetitive, growing pattern and the antique-like finish of the piece. All of this is pretty cool – I wish there was a larger body of his work somewhere to peruse but something tells me these take a long time to create!
The above is the only indoor huge installation of Robert’s I could find, it’s called, Man in Black and is wall covered in stained elm – it looks absolutely beautiful.
Tags: repetitive, sculpture, stone, weaving, wood