Survey Exhibition, Stephen King: Sculpture.
Sandra McMahon
Director
Tamworth Regional Gallery
Today our lives are saturated with technology and instant gratification, to have an opportunity to view objects which have been carved and formed by the human hand could be seen as a rare and privileged thing.
The creative journey takes years to realise, as artist, Stephen King, knows only too well. Stephen lives and works on a property in Walcha in regional NSW. He took up the offer made by his father after he completed art school, to split up the family property
in Walcha giving him 1200 hectares to live and work on. As a grazier King has become interested in genetics and the continuum
of life. Moving from cutting lino, to using
a chainsaw to carve into logs; the land continues to influence his art.
In the home paddock of his property you
find numerous large works that embrace
the tradition of figurative sculpture with Stephen’s unique personal narrative. He is surrounded by his material, gathering up fallen logs which he drags back to his studio using
a tractor and chains. He works in the open air, using a chainsaw, angle grinders and any other power tool that will assist him to realise the piece. “Art gives me an escape from
the farm and the farm gives me an escape from art” Stephen once commented. It’s a symbiotic relationship that he has formed with the environment that surrounds him.
Tamworth Regional Gallery is delighted to present this important survey exhibition, Stephen King: Sculpture. It represents nearly twenty years of work and includes a range of themes and approaches; from the small and finely carved work to the larger scaled works which expose the chainsaw and chisel marks thus revealing the beauty of the material used. The human element which has always been an important component
in Stephen’s work is well represented, and clearly demonstrates his mastery in this area. The transition between the figurative and the abstract is revealed in the Tower series which culminates in the work Fallout that won him the major award in the 2013 Sculpture by the Sea. This exhibition celebrates the contribution Stephen
has made to the practice of sculpture in Australia.
Stephen King has exhibited throughout Australia and overseas with his work included in numerous public and private collections. He was invited to attend the Inami International Wood Sculpture Camp in Japan in 2007 as the Australian representative.
He has completed a number of public art commissions in Sydney, Regional NSW and Victoria but governing of all his public art commissions would be the pieces included in the Walcha Open Air Gallery.
In 1999 he was awarded the main prize in the Festival of the Black Soil Plains, Moree and the Sherman Gallery Award in Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi; in 2007 and 2011 he was awarded the Acquasculpture Prize at Port Macquarie; also in 2011 the Curator’s award for Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi: Inside; he has exhibited in Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, fifteen times from 1997-2013 and was one of the first to be included as a member of the ‘Decade Club’, established to acknowledge those artists who have exhibited on more than ten occasions.
I would like to thank the numerous private lenders who have so kindly lent their valuable work for this exhibition; to Michael Hill for his scholarly essay; Roger Griffin for the catalogue design; Julia Griffin for her assistance and advice with locating and documenting the works; and my colleagues at Tamworth Regional Gallery.
In particular I would like to thank and acknowledge the generosity of Stephen King who it has been a pleasure working with.