Meet Orest Keywan
Born in Marienbad, on the Czech German border, in 1944. Currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia.
Sculptor Orest Keywan, who is represented in public and private collections in both Australia and internationally, is hailed by art critic Sebastion Smee as ‘one of the best sculptors we have’. Orest has exhibited with Sculpture by the Sea every year since 1998 and is the only Australian to have won Sculpture by the Sea twice. In 1965, Orest arrived in Sydney from Canada where he grew up and the following year, entered the National Art School in Sydney, where he studied under Lyndon Dadswell.
Exhibiting Sculpture
Summa (People's Choice Winner)
Orest’s sculpture is set apart by a careful consideration of the interaction between viewer and sculpture, an elegant linearity and a unique engagement of space. John McDonald, art critic, previously commented in the Sydney Morning Herald that ‘all of Keywan’s works may be seen as a conversation between opposing quantities and qualities. Line is pitted against mass, steel or aluminium against wood or plastic’.
What is often singled out in accounts of Orest’s sculpture is his ability to suggest in a work a sense of space that extends far beyond the physical dimensions of each piece. Using whimsical, even insubstantial linearity, Orest manages to engage the surrounding emptiness and conjure up a sense of the ephemeral. In a gently ironic manner, he infuses his sculpture with greater substance by activating the environment that surrounds it. As a result, Orest’s body of work has been described as being at once part of this world yet also distinct from it.
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Dimensions: 174 x 260 x 191m
Materials: Steel
Price: $120,000