By Michael Doran
In the dazzling gardens and surrounds of Yering Station, 39 finalists have put their works on display in the annual Yarra Valley Arts Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition.
The exhibition opened on 28 October and six awards, adjudicated by a panel of three judges, were presented to the winners.
Yarra Ranges council is a regular supporter of the event and mayor, Len Cox said the event is a major drawcard in the Yarra Valley’s art calendar.
“Supporting exhibitions like this is the sort of things councils should do,” he said. “We need to encourage people to create new and original artworks and sculptures like the ones we are seeing all around us today.
“It’s wonderful to see work from our very own Yarra Valley artists on display and also to see so many people here enjoying our region. I congratulate Yering Station Art Gallery on another great exhibition.”
The only artist to win dual awards was Madelaine Last, from Taggerty in neighbouring Murrindindi Shire. Madeline, who is a diesel mechanic by day, won the Winery Choice Award and the Arnold Bloch Lieber Prize.
“At school I tried to be creative but always failed,” she said. “Then after my apprenticeship I got the idea of using my welding to make sculptures.”
Her sculpture, entitled Epicormic Regeneration, is made from star pickets, bent and welded into the form of a burnt-out tree.
“I don’t know how I got the idea but it just popped into my head. I started using straight star pickets but it didn’t look real so I changed it to the way it is now.”
“I didn’t work from a drawing so I just stuck bits of pickets and wire together as I went along. It took about four months to make in a tractor shed and I really enjoyed using welding skills to make art.”
In the exhibition catalogue she describes the work “as exploring the resilience of Australians who have experienced the trauma of bushfire. It speaks of my observations of both humans and nature recovering from the aftermath of major bushfire events.”
Yering Station Art gallery curator, Dr Ewen Jarvis, spoke of the links between art and viticulture and how Yering Station had supported the exhibition for the 18 years it has been running.
“It is quite natural for Yering Station to be a part of bringing art and nature together through this annual exhibition,” he said. “Wine producers often feel sympathy for the vulnerability involved in the cultivation of art.”
Yarra Valley Arts, a not for profit community organisation, are partners in the event and vice-president, Diana Francis said the awards help to create and nurture arts opportunities in the community.
This is now the longest running sculpture event in Australia, and every year it grows in strength, becoming ever more valued and important for Australian sculptors and for the community she said.
Also on show is an exhibition titled PlasticTide, by French-born artist Carolyn Cardinet. This contains a collection of mixed media works using familiar forms of single-use plastic packaging. It is described as like “being swept out to sea on a raft of discarded plastic bottles.”
Both the sculpture and PlasticTide exhibitions run until 9 December at Yering Station.
