Deutscher and Hackett

Bronwyn Oliver’s delicate monochrome sculptures exist in the world with quiet and understated elegance. An unintended consequence of the artist’s formal and material development, their final forms appear organic, albeit parachuted from a mysterious and unknown origin. Having received early training in New British sculpture, Oliver’s practice was deeply rooted in the idea of truth and respect for her materials, her techniques emphasising authentic hand-worked craftsmanship. She was careful to dispel assertions that traced her inspiration directly from nature: ‘My ideas do not begin with natural forms. My ideas develop from the materials which I use and are not even remotely concerned with natural observation. I am interested in structure and what materials will do.’¹

Adopting the radiant and divine form of a large crescent, patinated a solemn matte black, Bronwyn Oliver’s sewn copper sculpture Aura, 1996 – 97 is delicately balanced between opposing tensions. While an inner rib of stiff sheet copper is curved into a smooth and distinctive numinous shape, Aura’s outermost surface is covered in bulbous forms. They appear to bloom outwards, their perforated surfaces straining against tightly crisscrossed cords. While not as stiff and overtly biomorphic as its closely related cousin, the baton-shaped bud-laden stem of Cocoon, 1995, Aura’s bipartite structure of trussed segments is similarly rendered with the relatively malleable medium of copper gauze. Laboriously individually moulded, parcelled and sewn together, these trussed protrusions are irregular. They cast a knobbly shadow with shifting moiré effects, contrasting with Aura’s smooth interior sweep. Pleased with this effect, Oliver used a similar technique in later works such as Garland, 2006 (now in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia).
 
Finishing in tapered points, the complete form of Aura is that of a closed biological vessel, its straining tension and breathable gauze skin alluding to an invisible living form enclosed within a bound package. Western Art holds a rich history of wrapped and bound forms, from Michelangelo’s sculptures of bound slaves to Christo’s contemporary environmental interventions, often illustrating tensions between constriction and escape; concealment and unveiling. This dichotomy has been a persistent thread within Bronwyn Oliver’s practice.
 
Wall-mounted with awe-inspiring proportions, Aura’s presence is one of resolute permanence, endowed with a strange divine power emanating from its arc-shaped form. A crown of light rays, or disc of radiant light is an ancient iconographic device denoting divinity that has travelled across cultures, from Helios with his radiate crown to modern depictions of Amitabha Buddha. Generally denoting a ring of light encircling the head and bust, an aura is usually attached to a holy or sacred figure. Here, Oliver’s dark Aura is divorced from its gigantic owner, waiting expectantly to confer its divine power to those near it.
 
1. Bronwyn Oliver, cited in Sturgeon, G., Contemporary Australian Sculpture, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1991, pp. 73 – 74
 
LUCIE REEVES-SMITH