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The Heads of Snowmen

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posted on 2025-03-27, 22:10 authored by DARREN SYLVESTERDARREN SYLVESTER
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

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  • 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.

Size or Duration of Work

twenty sculptures of glass and bronze

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