STEVIE FIELDSEND
BULGING ICHOROUS, 2015
Artist Stevie Fieldsend’s timber, molten glass, resin and water sculpture, Bulging Ichorous, was awarded the $5,000 Artist Peer Award as voted by her fellow exhibiting artists.
Bulging Ichorous was also awarded the $2,000 Scenic World Staff Choice Award for 2015, as voted by the staff of Scenic World.
In taking hold of the molten glass and working with it I come to know the material intimately – its properties, its strengths and weaknesses as well as its dangers and loveliness. It is a seductive material. Much has been written of the alchemical processes in working with glass – the transformation of “base” matter into something precious.
This transformative process is duplicated when I carve and sand the tree trunks found in Kurrajong, at the base of the Blue Mountains. It is an enjoyable process of attending to every little dip, bump, grain – personal and loving. It can also be brutal with the use of chainsaws, grinders, chisels, fumigation and blowtorches. The trunks are scarred all over with a solid black tattoo while its core remains an earthy red. The forms themselves undergo an endurance test. In a simultaneous movement, the gestural actions allow an emotional re-enactment of sorts which alters my being and my body. The work and the body are one.
Timber, glass, resin & water