Robert Barnstone
The Wanderers Cloak
Welded steel repurposed from an oil tank
90x75 x210
$8000
about
the
work
The Firetree series are a set of sculptures that investigates twisted material tensions in the steel as line and form and as drawings in space. They are forms regarding shapes of blaze of fire and poverty of water. The tragic forest fires we have just experienced where 1 of 5 trees were lost in NSW in a matter of months. This has left an imprint of devastation, of the scalded earth, of desolation in Australia. These pieces reflect the memory of this battlefield with earth and our continuing war with nature. We are losing Eden every time we take another bite. Though we have the knowledge we need to act, we refuse to sacrifice our pleasures of the moment because everything has become so easy. We are all obese with our lives and we watch documentaries ….. as the garden suffers from extinction on a daily basis. In the biological time of life, the extinction rate is one species every 700 years. We loose mutable species world wide , daily.
bio
Robert Barnstone is a practicing artist and Associate Professor, with a fine arts degree in Sculpture and Architecture from Bennington college, a Master of Architecture, Harvard University. Area of research is in sustainability for utilizing industrial waste streams for new products like phosphate cements and Plastic wood composits. In art it is often found in the boundaries between art and architecture. With over 20 scholarly publications and book chapter and 25 years of teaching. Notable Art installations include: Prone at the Socrates Sculpture Park in NYC, The Narrative Forest, Once Removed, SXS, Bondi,2013, Line vessels, SxS Bondi 2014, Cleft WSU, Body shells, SxS Bondi 2016 ,Gene Rosa SxS 2018. Prize and collections: Wolliombi , Whittier College Collection, Narrative interventions, Cite University Paris, Western Sydney University, Mona Farms, Kerr Neilson collection.
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