Recent - Denese Oates - Denese Oates

Arboreal
click here to see images from exhibition

recent sculpture August 2022

Stella Downer Fine Art

1/24 Wellington Street, Waterloo, NSW 2017

Thrive copper, burnt branch, 77 x 120 x 15 cm

The work in this exhibition is both a celebration of landscape, and a lament of the way humanity treats the natural world.

Results of bushfires are visually fascinating despite the devastation. Textures and colours found in the aftermath, and the signs of regeneration rising from the ashes have been influential in the making of these sculptures. The play of leaves in branches, scars and stains on bark, the texture of burnt wood represented here pay homage to the environment.

The contrast of new growth and burnt vegetation is shown in the materials used. These include recycled copper fashioned into twigs and leaves, discarded grapevines, spent gum nuts, remnants of burnt wood from the forest floor, all of which represent nature; and found materials such as an old WARNING sign, hat blocks and shoe lasts.

EVOLVE 2022 Copper & hat block 30 x 19 x 165 cm

LANDSCAPE in SCULPTURE Beaver Galleries, ACT 14-31 October 2021 Sugarloaf Tree – 2020 – copper on corten steel base – 170 x 90 x 90 cm
STICKBAG TREE Copper on corten base 200 x 80 x 104cm	PHOENIX TREE Copper & corten steel 168 x 115 x 60cm	CURVEDGE Grape vine, copper, marble 40 x 12 x 7cm
WOVEN SOLACE Copper 34 x 34 x 34cm	TRUNCATED Copper 48 x 30 x 30cm	SPRING BLIP Copper 41 x 20 x 20cm
FOOL ON THE HILL Copper, brass 35 x 20 x 20cm	EPI-CACOPHONOUS Copper 34 x 34 x 34cm	FROM THE ASHES Copper & corten steel 95 x 65 x 75cm
NASCENT WEIGHT Grapevine, copper, iron weight 51 x 17 x 17cm	WHEEDLE VINE Grapevine, copper 19 x 60 x 18cm	KNOBBY CIRCLET Grapevine, copper 66 x 52 x 16cm
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.” ― William Blake
Canberra Times Review of Landscape in Sculpture

REACH at the ninth Western Sydney
University Sculpture Award and
Exhibition
7 May – 6 June 2021

REACH at WSU 2021

REACH is a sculpture made from copper and corten steel representing vegetation emerging from rocky outcrops as often seen in arid areas of Australia. The resilience of the trees growing from barren rocks is one of the miracles of nature. The work is not a realistic depiction, rather an interpretation of the stark contrast between the hard dry rocks and the fleshy green vegetation sprouting from them.