aliey ball

METAMORPHOSIS Anything But Human by Julie Clarke

2011-08-04T18:09:00.000-07:00

The brilliant Julie Clarke has written a fascinating article titled

METAMORPHOSIS on her blog Anything But Human.

Spinner 1994

Clarke references the work of Aliey Ball (sculptor/Melbourne), Chris Barron (poet/Melbourne), Moira Corby (artist/Melbourne), Phylicia Daria (Systems Designer/USA), Bruce Dickson (artist/Melbourne), Andrew Garton (musician/Melbourne), Werner Hammerstingl (photographer/Melbourne), Clinton Hayden (photographer/Melbourne), Kyriaki Maragozidis (artist/Adelaide), Mark McDean (artist/Newcastle/Melbourne), Steven Middleton (animator/Melbourne) and Simon Park (scientist/United Kingdom).

Anything But Human is a thoughtful, charged and creative hub of information and ideas on the arts, film and theory. If you haven't already visited, I highly recommend you do. Always a fascinating read.

The Venny - Victorian Architecture Awards 2011 Shortlisted

2011-06-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

The City of Melbourne designed building The Venny - the Kensington Community Adventure Playground was shortlisted in this years Victorian Architectural Awards. Here is an image of the floor artwork I was commissioned to create for the interior space. Architect: Ralph Webster, Senior Architect, City of Melbourne.

"Heart Shaped Box" The Exchange Exhibition

2011-04-22T01:27:00.000-07:00

This image shows various views of "Heart Shaped Box". a current work-in-progress.

This is one of two works that I will be exhibiting in The Exchange Exhibition.

"A big exhibition of small scale work. Taking the 'artist swap' concept one step further, Exchange features art works by approx 50 contemporary artists - each artist is contributing one piece to swap with another artist in the exhibition and another piece that will be available for purchase. Both artworks by each artist will be on display during the exhibition

A diverse range of painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography and more, from artists in regional and metropolitan areas of Queensland, NSW, Victoria, SA and Tasmania."

Gatakers Artspace 331 Kent Street, Maryborough, Australia 4655

There is still some refining to do, then it will be primed and painted all over in high gloss white.

Live telesummit interview for My Artroom Online

2011-04-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

My interview with Lee Martin for My Artroom Online is now available.

My Artroom Online is "a connection from the classroom to the art community using a 6 week tele-seminar featuring some of the most successful artists in Australia today."

The interview is a one hour discussion about my art practice and is FREE to listen to,

and view a slide show of my work, for the next 72 hours. Just click on the link to register.

Other interviewed artists include:

Kerrie Lester

Robyn Stacey
Marco Luccio
Claire Bridge
and
Christophe Stibio

Net Work opening

2010-12-15T17:58:00.000-08:00

"Dibiont" installed at the Art Gallery of Ballarat for Net Work: the TLF Exhibition. Dec 11- Jan 30 2011

Sculptures for Net Work

2010-11-24T23:18:00.001-08:00

Tribiont 2010

On show at Net Work, the Art Gallery of Ballarat

December 11 - January 30

Dibiont 2010

On show at Net Work, the Art Gallery of Ballarat

December 11 - January 30

Dandenong Hospital Emergency Department Public Art Commission

2010-10-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

Installing the work…

Sunday 17th October

Dandenong Hospital Emergency Department Public Art Commission

2010-10-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

The Work In Progress…

Master furniture maker and designer Henri Pieperiet of Darios Design applies the high-gloss white finish to the bubble forms. Henri is a Dutch-trained artisan of great talent and expertise.

2010-10-09T19:09:00.001-07:00

Net Work - The TLF Exhibition

I am very pleased to announce that I will be participating in "Net Work - The TLF Exhibition" in December 2010.

"Net Work: the TLF exhibition" at the Art Gallery of Ballarat. Curated by Amanda van Gils, Net Work is an exhibition of the work of 38 artists connected through their membership of a private online forum for professional contemporary visual artists, "The Littlest Forum" (TLF). Supported by a website and colour catalogue including an eloquent essay by Robert Hollingworth.

Dandenong Hospital Emergency Department Public Art Commission

2010-08-21T06:44:00.000-07:00

orchids and bubbles

Lighting designer Marc Pascal and I have been commissioned to create this ceiling landscape for the waiting room of the new Dandenong Hospital Emergency Department waiting room.

Finalist - Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition & Awards 2010

2010-07-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

Aliey has been selected as Finalist in this year's Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition & Awards with the sculpture "Cabal".

The exhibition will be held at Yering Station 38 Melba Hwy, Yarra Glen 3775 Victoria, Australia.

The exhibition will show from Friday 22 October until Sunday 5 December, 2010, inclusively.

Another detail

2010-06-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

Gynostemium (A detail of something much larger)

2010-06-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

Gynostemium is the sex organ of the orchid, a column in which the male and female genitalia of the plant are fused. These rhizomes have been great inspiration to me.

gymno

The Gymno form has both phallus and orifice.

When cloned it self penetrates, interconnects and makes a spine.

These are rough prototypes, 3D sketches.

Here is Gymno reproduced larger with a high-gloss white finish.

Fishy Fish 1995

2010-03-25T05:20:00.000-07:00

(detail) copper wire mesh, wire, hesian and plaster

Womb Kicking 2 1995

2010-03-25T05:18:00.000-07:00

Plaster, wire, hesian, soap stone

Spinner 1995

2010-03-25T05:17:00.001-07:00

wax and wire

Untitled (Possum Man) 1995

2010-03-25T05:15:00.000-07:00

Soap stone, wire, resin and plaster

Untitled 1995

2010-03-25T05:10:00.000-07:00

Steel, wire, epoxy resin and paint

Barbarella 1994

2010-03-25T05:07:00.001-07:00

wax and wire

Caviar 1997

2010-03-19T03:28:00.001-07:00

Caviar 1997
Plaster, hesian, wire, condoms, water, small red balloons, air and the gallery space.

Full Circle 1998

2010-03-14T19:44:00.000-07:00

Dimensions: approximately 7 x 12 meters

Plaster, hesian, steel, lighting, sensors, subwoofa speaker, DAT sound system and cellar space.

...........................

Full Circle is a permenant, site-specific installation, created over a period of nine months.

Located in a cellar space near the corner of St Kilda Road and Southbank Boulevard (opposite the NGV International), Victorian College of the Arts.

About Full Circle

Inspired by Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space (specifically the chapter about the phenomenology of shells, how they are private spaces, where you dream you are alone),

combined with the notion of symbiotic evolution, where two life forms evolve in adaptation to their shared relationship. Like the Datura Lilly, with its long tubular flower, and the humming bird, with its long, thin curved beak. No other bird can collect the pollen from this flower.

So I set out to create a space, to "grow" a space, for my body. The space, therefore enacts a process of selection. Not every one can access the inner circle of the space. To do so you have a few choices: scale the 2.5 - 4 meter wall, enter at street level, via a trap door, through a slide or commando style (crawling on your belly, using your elbows to pull you forward and through. Like a flower to a bee, the space will coat you, in this case with plaster dust.

A leap of faith and physical prowess are a prerequisite of entry.

In the central space there is a bed you are invited to lie back in. It of course is moulded to by body. When reclined sensors pick up your presence and light up the interior of the adjacent large spore-like forms with a eerie red glow. This is the space's way of encouraging you to put your hands and feet inside.

Thus making the union complete.

Sound

Sound Artist Keith Netto, visited the cellar space several times to record the sounds of construction, as well as the atmospheric sounds (the screeching of the trams as they turned the corner, the murmurs of voices and vehicles passing by...). Keith joined me in the space for a good part of the final month, recording, mixing and reworking sounds. I built a subwoof speaker into the wall, like a black pulsating pearl. We noticed that some of the hidden wirework vibrated, so that the space began to "respond" to the sound. So I added a network of wires, behind the walls, to extend the sound experience further.

Process

The work is located in a cellar space, beneath what was the Police Hospital around the 1920's, where autopsies on the convicts were conducted. The space has a dark history and energy.

When I first gained access to the space it had an earth floor, above was the underbelly of the building above, about 180 cm high, with a network of pipes suspended below, providing services to the building above.

The first six months I was required to work outside of business hours, to prevent the noise of my building interrupting the daily activities of the Pilates Studio above. This meant working alone, through the night and on the weekends.

During that time I excavated with a mattock and shovel, buildt retaining walls and trenches, to completely transform the typography of the space. By the time I was completed you could walk through tight deep passageways, a meter and a half below ground level. No earth was removed, it was rearranged.

For the last three months I hand mixed and applied about a tonne of plaster to coat the structures and sculpt the surfaces of the space.

I would like to add that this work nearly killed me.

I do not say that lightly.

I also think it is by far the worst thing I have ever made.

The title Full Circle is about the recurring of ideas and desires.

My Best Egg Yet 1998

2010-03-13T02:55:00.000-08:00

Plaster, bamboo, steel, hesian and paint

Dimensions variable

A permanent, site-specific installation, commissioned by the (then) Director of Victorian College of the Arts, located in the Directorate stairwell.

This work is about the size and shape of a killer whale. It has made a lair of the directorate stairwell in the Elisabeth Murdoch building. In its nest lay eggs, hatched, on it's back are empty spore holes. Upon entering the stairwell it looms above, journeying up and around the three flights of stairs, several babies are seen scuttling up the corner. At the landing three enormous tendrils protrude from the wall, implying an even larger creature lying beneath the skin of the building itself.

Circle of Friends 1996

2010-03-09T22:26:00.000-08:00

Circle of Friends 1996

Cast aluminium and fern tree.

Everything is connected.

Our communities, our family groups,

are no different than a cluster of fern fronds, stemming from one plant.

I was also pondering the apparent hierarchy of living things and attempting to subvert our place within that system.

Oh Come with us and Gallop... 1997

2010-03-09T19:07:00.000-08:00

Oh Come with us and Gallop... 1997

In this installation there are 52 horses made of wax, mapping a sequential narrative around the space, as in Muybridge's famous photographs. The first, on your left as you enter the windowless space, has its head down, the next raises its head slightly, lifts a foreleg...through to a gallop, when all four legs leave the ground for a brief moment, then slowing down again to a halt to return to the door.

Each horse is housed within a timber box, rather like a series of film stills. Concurrently running along the edges of the room are thousands of pieces of bamboo, from tiny thin twigs graduating through to the largest at 3-4 meters. The bamboo leans into the corners and through its placement creates cardiogram-like forms, which increase and decrease in size to match the implied speed of the horses.

Blight 1997

2010-03-09T18:51:00.000-08:00

Another site specific installation, attempting to anthropomorphise a space. I wanted the skin of the walls to grow a disease, which leans threateningly into the room to confront the audience with its presence. The phenomenology of a space infected.

Stigmata 2004 (My Bloody Wall 1997)

2010-03-09T18:00:00.000-08:00

Created in about 2 days, exhibited for two and then destroyed, walls repainted in one day = total 5 days. Created in my 2nd year BA Fine Arts at Victorian College of the Arts in the Project Space. I remade it many years later at Bus ARI, Melbourne in 2004 under the new, and more fitting, title "Stigmata".

This work is intended as a vivisection of the gallery space. An anthropomorphic event, where the walls (interior) of the gallery become the skin (exterior) of some mortally wounded entity. Inside and outside are inverted. We are left standing in an alternate space of in-between: a threshold.

Some use the metaphor of a “fine line” to describe the divisions between art and design, inside and outside, good and evil. I see a space, one that, through this work, I aim to enlarge and expand.

The wound is an addition to the existing wall - the incision defines a surrogate landscape.

“…to create the one (the inside) is to create the other (the outside) is to create the distinction, in a world in which there is space – or, rather, space is made.” Ranulph Glanville, p.182 “Living in Lines” Interior Cities , RMIT University Press 1999.

Mystical Stigmata are paranormal and unfathomable: miracles or acts of evil? The sufferers: are they blessed or victimized? Mystical Stigmata exist in a place between good and evil – they are of the other. The Catholic Encyclopedia cites Mystical Stigmata as a participation in suffering for the expiation of sins. Which divides the line of questioning into two parts: Who (or What) is suffering? What are the sins?

In the case of this work the hecatomb is the gallery space. In making this distinction the environments we inhabit become inclusive of our definition of Nature. Could then “the original sin” be the exclusion of ourselves (and our creations) from that which is natural? This sense of belonging to Nature may assist us in the expiation of our sins.