One bottom three tops is a ceramic sculpture in four parts. The central part is a stand on top of which the other pieces can fit. This system produces a work that takes different forms like a movie with multiple endings and interpretations, shapeshifting depending on which object is selected and how it's read. Is it a dildo or a building? A trophy or a dream? A crab or a gender non-specific primal scene, a maquette for an anxious rainbow monument? It draws on sources such as contemporary art, historical sculpture and exoticism in a personal mash-up of idolatry.
The work is glazed in saturated low-fired cadmium hues with deep blue and green under tones referencing the processes of heat that transform clay into vitrified ceramic. Applied expressively, and counter to the intricate construction of the forms, the hot colours intensify ongoing preoccupations in my practice: primality, the body, energy flows and sexuality.
Trevor Fry is a Sydney based artist who has worked in sculptural ceramics as his principal medium over the last 10 years while continuing to make the performance videos, installations and drawings that previously characterised his practice. He has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas including solo shows at MOP Projects, and group shows Implicated and Immune (Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland 2015), It's a New Day (Artspace, 2006, curated by Sally Breen), Stunning Edge (Taiwan National Ceramics Research Institute, Taipei 2016), SEXES (Performance Space 2012, curators Bec Dean, Jeff Khan and Deborah Kelly), New Contemporaries (SCA Gallery 2016), 6x6 for the Australian Ceramics Association (TACA) Triennale in Canberra 2015, and two exhibitions curated by Glenn Barkley: Overundersidewaysdown (TACA Biennial exhibition, Manly Art Gallery and Museum 2016) and the Gold Coast International Ceramics Award 2016.
In 2010 Trevor completed an MVA entitled Kynical Shit, and in 2015 a PhD entitled Dirty Tricks at SCA, University of Sydney. Both research projects focused on aspects of ceramics and clay in contemporary art. He is a regular contributor to exhibitions and events at artist run galleries including Marrickville Garage and Stonevilla Studios, Sydenham.
glazed ceramic
variable
Finalist
Judges of the 2017 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize: Djon Mundine OAM (Curator, Writer, Artist and Activist), Roslyn Oxley OAM (Gallerist and arts benefactor) and Alexie Glass-Kantor (Executive Director, Artspace, Sydney and Curator, Encounters, Art Basel | Hong Kong).
Download PDF (857 KB)