The 2007 Anne & Gordon Samstag
International Visual Arts Scholarships
Artist: Nick Mangan
Doomdrum 2005
found floor drum, speaker, wood veneers, found dowel, found teak, sound
75 x 45 x 50 cm
© the artist
The Colony 2005
axe, shovel and hammer handles, found dowel, found teak forks and spoons,
western red cedar, elk hair, nylon hair, jute, teak stainer, wooden chopsticks
400 x 155 x 155 cm
© the artist
The sculptures that Nick Mangan makes are essentially accretions, sometimes geological, like crystals; sometimes organic, like coral. They also incorporate unexpected combinations of objects, and reflect the collage principle that has continually influenced art since Picasso began sticking bits of bric-a-brac together a century ago. Mangan expresses an interest in the proliferation of exotic souvenirs associated with trade routes and colonialism. The meaning and use of such objects transforms as their location alters, and they become recontextualized in a global system of information and commodity exchange. Mangan’s constructed hybrids are analogous to the collage society we live, pieced together from fragments so diverse that their origins are almost meaningless.
His sculptures suggest the way that geographical and cultural divisions have dissolved to the point where everything is more or less loosely connected. It is not, however, the connections that seem most significant. He expresses the accompanying dissolution. Termites provide a very useful analogy for this dual process because they not only invade and destroy objects, but also rearrange and construct matter. Mangan’s sculpture The Colony suggests both growth and decay. The spiky construction of chewed wood could be alternatively read as skeletal remains or a thrusting edifice.
Timothy Morell
from his Samstag catalogue essay;
Loose connections
| Born 1979, Geelong, Victoria | ||
| 2001 | Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art), Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne | |
| Awards | 2007 | Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship |
| 2006 | Australia Council, Greene Street studio residency, New York. | |
| 2004 | ANZ Bank Private, emerging artist program | |
| 2003 | Arts Victoria, new work grant | |
| Individual Exhibitions | 2006 | Sutton Gallery, Melbourne |
| 2005 | The Colony, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne | |
| 2003 | In the crux of matter, Sutton Gallery, Melbourne | |
| 2002 | The Obolus, Studio 12, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne | |
| 2001 | OBTX4Plastralwallmold, Penthouse and Pavement Gallery, Melbourne | |
| Selected Group Exhibitions | 2006 | Uncanny Nature,
Australian Centre For Contemporary Art, Melbourne Adventures with form in space: The Fourth Balnaves Foundation Sculpture Project, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney Recent Acquistions, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney Super Natural, The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand |
| 2005 | Slave, VCA Gallery,
Melbourne Re:thinking, BUS, Melbourne |
|
| 2004 | 2004: Australian Culture Now, Ian Potter Centre,
National Gallery of Victoria; and ACMI, Melbourne Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2004 National Works on Paper, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Mornington, Victoria “Drawing”, Mir11, Melbourne Work in progress, Spacement, Melbourne |
|
| 2003 | vécu, Conical, Melbourne Compendium, Platform, Melbourne |
|
| 2002 | In the Making, 1st Floor Artists’ and Writers’
Space, Melbourne Carbon Copy and Giant Molecules, Penthouse and Pavement, Melbourne Pure Negativity, Westspace, Melbourne Mutable Spaces, Metro Arts, Brisbane Only the Lonely, Block Gallery, Sydney Why do Birds Suddenly Appear, Boutwell Draper Gallery, Sydney |
|
| 2001 | 200 Gertrude St Studio artists show, Gertrude
Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne Mixed bag, collaboration with Masato Takasaka and Bianca Hester, Ocular Lab, Melbourne |
|
| Collections | National Gallery of Victoria Monash University Museum of Art Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney Artbank |