2019 Exhibitions

2019 Director’s Choice Exhibition
28 September - 30 October

The Director’s Choice Exhibition features sculptures that were selected from the 2019 Annual Studio Exhibition by Chair Carol Crawford and Board Member Margo Hoekstra.

The exhibition features TBSSS students: Helen Alajajian, Sandra Berzins, Rhonda Cooper, Dinah Davis, Terry Dawson, David D’Silva, Sam Eller, Tom Emmett, Alison Ewings, Bob Hamilton-Foster, Isabelle Huang, Elizabeth Peddell, Jillian Waters, Mareike Winkelmann

The winners of the 2019 Prizes were:

Director's Choice Prize: Dinah Davis

AGNSW Highly Commended Prizes: Tom Emmett and Alessandro Tosetto

Special Cely and Cely & Sil Prizes: Elena Murgia and Bob Hamilton-Foster

People's Choice Prize: Penny Bobbin

Images coming soon.

The Muse
6 September - 19 September 2019

This exhibition is student work which came out of a 9 week portrait-from-life workshop I held at the TBSSS in Term I this year, all the pieces inspired by the same model. I organised this show because I was impressed with the quality, diversity and expressive nature of the work the students produced and which I wanted to share with a broader community.

An important aspect of my teaching is to encourage students to interrogate the way in which they engage with, examine and interpret form – in this case, the head study.

Sometimes a quest for capturing a likeness can result in a piecemeal approach, attending to individual features, with the result that the integrity and energy of the whole portrait can be lost. I encourage my students to be critically conscious of what they are trying to express before they put a hand to the clay so that the process of making (which can offer all sorts of technical challenges) doesn't sabotage their expression, but rather, reinforces it; to demonstrate that by understanding where they are headed and remaining conscious of how they want to interpret the form they can avoid an approach where personal expression is an afterthought added on (more often than not unsuccessfully) at the end of the making.

The diversity of work in this exhibition is a tribute to the success the students have achieved towards this goal and to the highly personal interpretation and execution of form they have made in response to the model and I would like to congratulate them all on their work.

 Jenny Pollak

The exhibition features: Helen Alajajian, Barbara Castagna, David D’Silva, Robert Hamilton-Foster, Chantal Lawrence, Eva Lopez-Casero and Jilian Waters.

Embrace an exhibition by Karen Alexander
27 July - 28 August

Embrace
Tendrils of dew form
as early morning awakens
With the sun’s golden fingers
Unfurling a new day

Clay is a wonderful sculptural material, it absorbs your touch and gives voice to your story.  As I reflect on our humanity and connection to earth and nature, my work provokes an emotional response; the forms seem to hold you, they are organic, textural and earthbound.   Through hand building processes, using wooden tools to shape and paddle the forms, I am able to instil vibration as an echo of life. Firing the clay to stoneware, enhances a deep rich colour and adds strength and character to the organic forms.

Bio: Karen L Alexander
Alexander began her love of sculpture at the Tom Bass Broadway Studio. She studied under Bass, learning traditional sculpture making methods, and has created works from clay to bronze. Enamoured with the body, through the Life Study, has brought subtle figurative references into her new work.

Bass passed on his passion for public sculpture representing community and this led to Alexander producing commissions. These include Bronze Busts for the Australian Cricket Captain’s Walk, Cootamundra Council; The Rainbow Serpent, Erskineville Public School and large-scale Celtic Cross in The New Learning Centre, Holy Cross College, Ryde.

After relocating to the Southern Highlands in 2015, enabling her to re-visit her studio practice. Turning to ceramics as a new medium, she has worked with Sturt Craft Centre as a professional artist and has participated in the Southern Highlands Art’s Festival. Inspired to produce an emerging body of work, resulted in a solo exhibition ‘Embody’ held at her Highlands Studio.

Alexander is a guest teacher at the TBSSS and runs bespoke workshops in regional NSW. Her studio is surrounded by nature and provides inspiration for her organic forms. Alexander’s work is held in private collections in Australia.

From Life
27 May - 10 July

An exhibition which showcased work from the Life Study class, in which students work directly from a live model. Exhibition featured: Dinah Davis, David D’Silva, Hester Elemans, Bernice Lowe, Arielle Morris, Annette Neeson, Monika Scarrabelotti, Gwyneth Stephens and Martin Williams.

Shapes and Landscapes
23 March - 15 May

Shapes and Landscapes is an exhibition of sculptures by longtime TBSSS students Elizabeth Abrahams and Marianne Halmos. It is a collection of figurative landscapes and natural and imagined forms. These have generally been built in clay then cast in plaster or carved in soapstone, sandstone or alabaster. Their works were created largely in their Thursday evening workshop class over an eight-year period.

Bio: Elizabeth Abrahams
I have been attending classes at Tom Bass Sculpture Studio School for 8 or 9 years. My introduction to sculpture was through ‘Sculpture in a Day’ at the Studio School all those years ago. I had it in my mind to make the face of a much travelled and world -weary monk from the Byzantine era, a character in a book I had been reading. I was totally hooked after this class. I began to come on a Thursday evening with Bernice Lowe as my teacher and the fun began. There are still four or five of us from my first class and so we have become friends, more than friends really.

My sculptures, which are mainly built in clay then cast in plaster are heavily influenced by the natural world. Even though it is often figurative I see these figures in imposing mountain ranges, trees, gently sloping hills and eroded or piled rocks. These natural forms are the perfect works to me. There are plenty of sculptors from the past to admire whose figures have a monumental quality. I would love to make a public sculpture at some time.

When I am not at class making sculptures, I have a speech pathology practice. Other time is spent outside walking in mountains, travelling or kayaking with my husband or seeing family and friends. Sculpture is an activity to disappear into and be quiet.
 
Bio: Marianne Halmos
I have been coming to Tom Bass Studios for approximately 8-9 years. What was a one term birthday present many years ago from my family turned into a passionate hobby.

I enjoy sculpting, especially carving. I love the idea of freeing a shape out of a piece of rough stone. I have carved both abstract shapes and figures out of different materials, sandstone, limestone, soapstone, timber and alabaster. 

In my day job I am an architect running my own practice. In my spare time I love travelling, looking at museums, art galleries and architecture. 

Seeing through our eyes…
1 February - 13 March

Seeing through our eyes… was an exhibition that showcased new and recent work by Tom Bass Sculpture Studio School’s term teachers, guest and trainee teachers. The exhibition included sculptures by: Karen Alexander, Wendy Black, Michael Christie, Carol Crawford, Christine Crimmins, BJ Kim, Ingrid Morley, Arielle Morris, Jenny Pollak and Monika Scarrabelotti.