ANTHONY SAWREY
Australian artist Anthony Sawrey completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts (2004-07) and a Masters of Fine Art at Victoria College of the Arts Melbourne (2008-09). His major studies were in studio painting but in time he began to create large scale environment art utilising line marking fluids and a motorised spray pump. He has produced commissions for numerous exhibitions and clients including Sculpture by the Sea Bondi 2013 and Cottesloe 2017 and 2023, Lorne Sculpture Biennial in 2014 and 2016, Sculpture in the Vineyards Wollombi 2012-214, Moreland Sculpture Prize 2013-14, Melbourne Test Sites public arts program in 2016 and Swell Sculpture Festival QLD and Beechworth Contemporary Art Prize Vic in 2022. He lives in the Central Highlands of Victoria.
Can you describe your creative process from concept to completion?
Creative processes are little different from any thinking process. You start with a tangle of neural activity, incoherent and meaningless. From this dubious state you tease out the mess until a strand catches your attention. That strand could morph into an idea, it could also very well turn into a shopping list.Imagine a cluster of unidentified embryonic cells in a petri dish. With some nutrients they begin to divide, but in the early stages of growth there are no clues as to what final form the cells will take; be that salamander or elephant. All there is is an unknown, a potential something. I regard creative processes as something sort of similar, a fuzzy cloud of mental activity, unknowable at first but likely to generate something tangible given the right amount of time. And while the emergence of an art concept is a beginning it is also one of completion and takes place in the same instance. A brief flare and no more. Everything after that moment is planning, logistics and manufacturing.
Where do you look for inspiration? What themes do you find most interesting?
Inspiration is an awkward term for me. I consider inspiration as a catalyst for producing art to be a cliche and more likely to be found in movies than real life. While I am moved by things both real and imaginary, I see little relation between moments of ‘inspiration’ and the themes I explore as an artist. To me, inspiration or similar poetic responses to sense phenomena tend to interfere with the subjects I have an intellectual interest in. If this a case of the Nietzschean Apollo overcoming Dionysus then so be it. The themes I have pursued over the course of my career have been familiar to many artists since the 1960s. From painting in an expanded field to ephemeral art and abstract minimalism. I am also fascinated by cartography imaginary cities, structures, non sites and non art . I believe in the blurring of the boundaries between art idioms and the poetics of absence and invisibility.
What role does location or environment play in your sculptures?
Location, location, location. The role of environment and location varies from project to project. Sometimes a site directs the development of my work, informs and completes it. Others times the location is meaningless. For the work I have in mind for Swell 2024 location is of no importance at all. This work is shaped in the viewers mind and the patch of earth it projects from is essentially irrelevant.
How do you feel when you see people interacting with your sculptures?
Vindicated
Come and see for yourself at SWELL Sculpture Festival, Pacific Parade, Currumbin 6th – 15th September.