The 2003 Anne & Gordon Samstag
International Visual Arts Scholarships
| Callum Morton | Simon Pericich | Samantha Small |
Artist: JOHN MEADE
Objects to live by 2000
cast stainless steel field on plinth
variable dimensions
© the artist
Baby baby misere; tongue tunnel; emotional motif 2002
pvc fibre, polyurethene, stainless steel
variable dimensions
© the artist
Many of the sculptural works made by John Meade traverse a surreal fetishistic ground. Meade's indefinable objects for indefinable needs titled Objects to Live By (2000) are smoothly chromed, a seductive fashionable finish suggesting both industrial and domestic settings. In a later work one of these objects reappears but it has become pink. Named by Meade Emotional Motif, this object, a small bollard hung with a ring, is most recently, perhaps finally, manifested in thin dark latex rubber with a ring made from plaited linen thread. The viewer is unlikely to guess it but Emotional Motif is a three-dimensional model of Jacques Lacan's line drawing of his theory of the topology of the drive. (In brief what goes up must come down.) The object looks like some obscure erotic tool, a giant nipple, or a dummy for a child with a very large mouth.
By making this intellectual diagram three-dimensional, Meade is approaching theory through the body, pushing at making thought palpable and visible, creating simple forms to signify complex and latent layers of thought.
Stephanie Radok
from her Samstag catalogue essay;
The Point of Knowing
| John Meade Born 1956, Ballarat, Victoria |
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| 2003 | Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship MFA, New York University, New York, USA |
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| 2000 | Master of Arts by Research (Sculpture), RMIT University, Melbourne | |
| 1995 | Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) (Honours), RMIT University, Melbourne | |
| 1994 | Bachelor of Fine Art (Sculpture) Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne | |
| 1991 | Certificate of Art and Design, RMIT TAFE, Melbourne |
| Callum Morton | Simon Pericich | Samantha Small |