“Sydney Operascape”, paper sculpture artwork now resides with Copenhagen jeweller Hartmann’s in Denmark. I was commissioned to create this work to provide the setting for Hartmann’s exquisite Pink Argyle Diamond jewellery creations while commemorating 50 years of Australia’s iconic Sydney Opera House, itself designed by a Danish architect, for a Travel Insider eight-page feature in the September Qantas Inflight Magazine. The universally renowned forms of the Sydney Opera House were the inspiration for what I saw as a landscape capturing the simplicity and beauty of this landmark architectural Australian icon, hence I called it “Sydney Operascape”. This was an exciting collaboration with Visual Director Elizabeth Hachem and Design Director Tony Rice of publishers Medium Rare Content in Sydney. It was a real joy and privilege to have been engaged with complete creative freedom for the artwork. To quote Tony Rice: “Thank you so much for a seamless creative experience. It was a pleasure to deal with you and a pleasure to see the way you work, and importantly leave you to your work with trust. I carried the sculpture from Sydney to Copenhagen without opening the package sent by you from Melbourne, so essentially sight unseen. Opening it in the photographer's studio 16,000 km's away, days after arrival, was akin to opening a vault. It was amazing to lift it out of its travel case and feel the lightness and to see the delicacy in the detail. All crew in the room were speechless. ”Sculptured from mould-made 300gsm cold pressed new cotton, rough textured Arches French aquarelle paper backed with handmade Japanese Mulberry fibred 25gsm Unryu #7 paper. The background is vertically curved to prevent unattractively long shadows from underneath the considerably deep feature subject.
Dimensions: 110 cm H x 56 cm W x 20cm D
All magazine feature photography, Frederik Lindstrøm, Copenhagen
.Standalone artwork photograph, Ray Besserdin
Harrolds Spring Carnival Store Window Borders and display plinths for Melbourne, Sydney and Gold Coast. These very successful designs were based on a composite of elements from the highly awarded “Paper Landscapes” artworks exhibited in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens of Melbourne.
In this collaboration I designed and created a delicately translucent dress to be worn by a model that was photographed by award winning photographer Vicki Papas. I have always been inspired by the stunning plumage of Peacocks. Here was an opportunity to see what could be done to give the model a flowing light weight appearance not possible using heavier opaque papers. By using lighting from inside the dress, the paper feathers appeared to glow while revealing a beautiful upward lifting sweeping, live sculpture.
Sculptured in Japanese 30gsm Kozo handmade papers.
The final photograph won the 2018 Gold WPPI Award, presented in Las Vegas.
The marketing director of Watergardens Shopping Centre, a Queensland Investment Corporation property in Melbourne needed a centre piece designed and created to make shopping for Mother’s Day a special attraction. The unique look of sculptures in paper drew the management to engage me for this collaborative effort. The work will remain a permanent installation with Water Gardens.
The sculpture portrays the essence of mothers universally. Symbolized firstly by a large heart form of wings, representing the “mother” caringly enclosing her “offspring” strongly projects the feeling of gentle protection while the young ones develop their life skills, without restraining them.
Requiring 50 square metres of German Hahnemulle special acid free cotton paper and 480 hours of work, this freely suspended piece measures 3.1 metres tall by 3.6 metres wide and 600mm deep.
Each of the eight blocks with its component of the life cycle story described is 25cm x 25cm and sits 5cm deep.
In 2000 I was asked again by Northern Territory government to create something to make their entry in the Australian Federation celebration parades especially memorable. The planners involved me to design and create four extremely large paper sculptures representing iconic Territory wildlife to be the prominent centre attraction of a float for the 2001 Australian Federation Parades. Unveiled in Sydney, before journeying to the Melbourne event, the sculptures returned to the Northern Territory where they were installed for the public in the foyer of Alice Springs airport.
The two largest elements are 3.9 metres tall and 6.3 metres long, spectacularly all in white, they include a Frilled Lizard, a Saltwater Crocodile with captured Barramundi in jaws, and two dancing Brolgas mounted in a moving centre stage. According to an unofficial reference by Guiness Book of Records, they were the largest paper sculptures in the world at that time and durable enough to withstand external elements for a limited time.
To make it possible to construct such sculptures, Blue Lake Paper Mills of Mt Gambier, South Australia produced a special bespoke 1000gsm cotton rag paper in huge 2.4 metre x 1.2 metre sheets.
In collaboration with Melbourne architects Robert Peck von Hartel Trethowan, (of Museum of Australia co-design renown), this sculpture was created for the Macquarie Bank to feature in the foyer of 150 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne CBD.
I designed a triptych as a flowing, energetic synthesis of distinctive natural and cultural elements of Victoria, including the Arts Centre spire, the Mountain Ash, and Lyrebird. In the centre are hands surrounding the planet as if in guardianship. A personal sentiment for the preciousness of our earth with Australia, our home, in the focal point. A reference is also made to the Bureau of Meteorology, the major tenants of the address at the time, with swirling storm clouds over the northwest of the continent, which followed the flow of the overall design.
Created in 1998, it won Gold at the New York Dimensional Art Awards of that year and was given a half page feature on page 6 of the Melbourne Age newspaper, Tuesday September 29, 1998.
Following renovations in 2014, the work has since been relocated to a private collection.
In collaboration with Art Director Clayton Homer of Irish International BBDO in Dublin, inspired by the famous “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” by Hokusai (1831), I was engaged to create a wave from envelopes that represented being swamped by everyday bills. The client was Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI). Working with quantities of actual bill envelopes sent from Ireland, I began with a miniature scale model (visible behind me in the studio photo) to test and prove a workable design. Formed of hundreds of envelopes flowing up and over with stormy dynamism, the photograph of the finished sculpture was then applied to a variety of outdoor advertising media, including 48 sheet billboards.
The collaboration proudly won the 2017 Institute for Creative Advertising and Design (ICAD) Awards Bronze Bell, which is a unique traditionally cast actual bell made of bronze.
The final work measured 180cm H x 300cm W x 40cm D.
As part of a project by Axlund Goldstein Interior Design, director Sue Axlund involved me to design and create this free-flowing form to go with her firm’s concept for Crown Hotels rooms. A flowing pattern of floral forms made of elements inspired by Bird of Paradise feathers. Created as a peaceful decorative work in a monochrome of white cotton sculptured paper elements, the shapes of which are revealed only by natural light and shade.
I come back to these energy flows in many of my abstract works because they carry the viewer into a pleasing sense motion with no start or finish.