In her latest exhibition Sugar, McCulloch takes her observations literally into new physical spaces, extending her paintings into clay sculptures. The translation into a new medium is entirely successful. The hallmarks of her paintings - liquid and dynamic movement, emotive facial expressions and languid lines - are all present in these three-dimensional forms. Their materiality how- ever, suggest the artist has an enlivened understanding of the possibilities of the gure.
These women are palpable expressions of unashamed abandon. Sensual, powerful and jubilant, they convey an understanding of what it means to live, love and feel through the body's senses and forms. It is entirely obvious that the materiality of clay offers the artist a tactile opportunity to mould and shape these bodies into new gurations not possible through pigment. They are quite simply, made to be touched and experienced through our own bodies and sense of what it means to be comfortable in your own skin.
Dr Jess Berry, Senior Lecturer Design History/Theory Monash University.
Rather than paying heed to the idling murmurs of the mind, we can ignore our ever-increasing thought stream and find peace in listening to the body that has been there for us all along. It's this discovery that compelled me to make work in a three-dimension- al form. The works in Sugar capture the intensity of making that connection, they are about the sweetness of shutting the chatter out and finding a new source of contentment that starts with trusting something more corporeal.
The process of rolling of hundreds of clay coils and then constructing these forms that looked and felt completely like my drawings and paintings, took me by surprise. It was like being able to walk around and see the back of a drawing and feel it's weight. I love how they make me feel and I love the impact that they have had on my process already.
Press release courtesy THIS IS NO FANTASY.
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