The First Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

Bronwyn Oliver was born in lnverell, New South Wales, Australia in 1959. She graduated with a Bachelor of Education (Art) from Alexander Mackie CAE, Sydney in 1980. With a NSW Travelling Art Scholarship and a Dyason Bequest Scholarship, she gained a Master of Arts in Sculpture from the Chelsea School of Art, London in 1983. She has held solo exhibitions since 1986, mainly at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney and the Christine Abrahams Gallery, Melbourne. In 1992, she exhibited in Auckland, Adelaide and Perth. Since 1981, her participation in group exhibitions in Australia, Europe and Japan has included 'Australian Paper Works', Museum of Traditional Industries, Kyoto, 1983; 'Young Contemporaries', ICA, London, 1983; 'Underwater', Plymouth Arts Centre, England, 1984; 'The New Generation', Australian National Gallery, Canberra, 1988; 'Ten Australian Artists', Chapelle Salpetriere, Paris, 1989; 'Fourth Australian Sculpture Triennial', National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1990; 'Correspondences', Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 1991; and 'Rediscovery- Ten Australian Artists', Seville Expo, 1992. Scholarships and awards have enabled her to spend time at the Cite des Arts, Paris and to hold a Fellowship in Sculpture at the Gloucestershire Institute of Art. In 1991 she was Artist-in-Residence at Auckland City Gallery. Bronwyn Oliver's work is represented in public and private collections in Australia and overseas including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, National Gallery of Victoria, Queensland Art Gallery, and the ICI Collection. The enigma of Bronwyn Oliver's sculp- ture is borne of inherent juxtaposition and contradiction. Neither ancient nor contem- porary, her sculptures appear delicate and ephemeral yet are structurally robust and durable. They are conceptually mysterious though physically tangible, alien in appear- ance yet emotionally evocative, otherworldly but scaled to human dimensions. Oliver's high degree of craftsmanship matches that found in the most precious of handmade vessels, yet despite their occupational allusions and aged patina these objects are neither functional nor specifically derivative of ancient crafts and rituals. Works such as Labyrinth V, Tress and Clef inhabit a timeless sphere that is universally accessible and belongs to no particular cultural tradition. Bronwyn Oliver's work AUSTRALIA BRONWYN OLIVER transports the viewer into a mythical dimension that exists beyond yet is firmly rooted in everyday reality. Form and shape are determined by practical as well as conceptual concerns, the manoeuvrable potential of the chosen material outweighing a desire to duplicate or evoke familiar natural forms. It is this ultimate honesty to structure and workmanship, an unwillingness to engage in the deceptive manipulation of existing perceptions, that sites Oliver's work in a nether world straddled between rationality and imagination. Forms echo through struc- tural necessity, rather than self-conscious emulation, the botanical and biological motifs to which they are often compared. While visual parallels in the natural world may provide handles on which to pin superficial understanding, the power of these works lies, conversely, in their conceptual autonomy. The apparent simplicity of Oliver·~ ·forms belies the painstakingly intricate, repetitious and physically laborious requirements of her process. The malleability of copper is enhanced by breaking it down into minuscule parts that take the form of coils, coins, threads and loops. Hung, strung and welded together over weeks and months, the shape of the sculpture evolves gradually, accommodating and mutating the original conception as it grows. The technical and time-consuming machinations of this process invoke a corporeal sensuality unusual to a metallic medium. Intellectually, metaphorically and often physically open-ended, Bronwyn Oliver's sculptures evade chronological and cultural categorisation, conjuring a diversity of equivocal allusions, though in the end irreconcilable with any. This lack of definitive conceptual and aesthetic legibility lends Oliver's work a seductive timelessness that is, ironically, peculiarly contemporary in spirit. Felicity Fenner 105 Top Labyrinth V 1992 Copper 170x50x20cm Collection : Private collection Bottom Clef 1993 Copper 110x45x40cm Collection : Private collection