In 'The Heads of Snowmen', Sylvester presents a series of multi-coloured, hand-blown glass heads, embellished with cast bronze features, including carrot noses, button eyes and a cheeky smoke. Severed and decapitated from their glossy bodies, Sylvester’s snowmen heads appear frozen-in-time, underscoring the artists ongoing interest in how death is presented in pop culture.
History
Add to Elements
Yes
NTRO Output Type
Original Creative Work
NTRO Output Category
Original Creative Work : Visual artwork
Place
Melbourne, Australia
Venue
Neon Parc
NTRO Publisher
Neon Parc
Start Date
2024-02-01
End Date
2024-02-24
Medium
glass, bronze
Research Statement
In 'The Heads of Snowmen', I presented twenty multi-coloured, hand-blown glass heads, embellished with cast bronze features, including carrot noses, button eyes and a cheeky smoke. Severed and decapitated from their glossy bodies, the snowmen heads appear frozen-in-time, underscoring the artists ongoing interest in how death is presented in pop culture. At once a beacon of seasonal festivity, the severed snowman head is both repellent and captivating, both redolent of atavism and caught up in the story of what is natural and inevitable; it is created, it melts, it dies. In short, the essence of what it means to be human.
This was my first exhibition using glass, a completely new discipline and learning experience. Working along side three glass blowers over a period of weeks we learnt how to incorporate bronze pieces I had made into the glass, which themselves had never attempted before.
The research significance was that this was the first of two back-to-back major solo exhibitions at Neon Parc in Melbourne, something not attempted in its' over 20 year history. The idea was to place a large institutional exhibition spread out of two shows to cover almost two months. The exhibition was a sell out, and further work was made to handle a back catalogue of orders. Further works were then made in the same style to be shown exclusively at Sydney Contemporary Art Fair in September, 2024.