This piece has developed from leftover materials in my studio. With the element of recycling, with the symbol of the circles overlapping, giving a sense of depth in time and the continued circle of life.
Michelle Kirk is a Sydney based artist, born in 1971 in Sydney, who grew up on the fringes of a national park where she still lives with her husband and three teenage children. Balancing her artistic pursuits and teaching yoga and meditation practices, she is currently working on combining metal and fibre through collage and sculpture.
Michelle is the daughter of an accomplished printmaker, collage artist, and ceramist. Her childhood was a world of colour and design, with fond memories formed tinkering in her mother's studio and exploring the bushland around her. Michelle spends time sorting through fabric remnant bins and secondhand clothing stores, finding the most beautiful lost silks. Collecting metal, she has never thrown out a tin lid, or a dandelion tea bag, and the more rusted wire is, the better. She also spends time every day in the national park which is a big part of her art work.
"The alchemy of my work is staggeringly full of beauty, esoteric and cathartic, a meditation practice. I love experimenting with eco dyes, boiling, pounding and pressing, with beautiful old scraps of fabric and wrapping, tearing, folding and bending metals. Most important is patience and time. Watching marks appear, colours. Patterns shift and change as the seasons do. I am left with yards of interesting marks and patterns and the puzzle begins as I place them all back together and lay my story down..."
metal, wire, tin lids, eco dyed fabric
50 x 20 x 20 cm
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).
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