Clementine Maconachie’s stacked totem sculptures balance the imperfect beauty of the natural world. The Arden + White roster artist's ongoing desire to unite these structures that blend the imperfections crafted by human hands and man-made machines with the innate essence of their raw materials.
Alongside presenting Maconachie’s wabi-sabi sculptural wall reliefs, the gallery will also now feature her totemic artworks, which are currently available for inquiries.
A+W: Your totems. Can you tell us how you shape these objects?
CM: I make them piece by piece. I carve the shapes [of the pieces] roughly and then I go back and sand them to a smooth finish. So after I have made the stand I make the base and then the next piece and so on till I get to the top. Each piece informs the next they are all different.
Maconachie is widely acclaimed for her metal sculptures, where she employs her body’s weight to cold bend materials like wabi-sabi steel and aluminum, crafting distinctive folds.
A+W: Walk us through the process of cold bending…
CM: I get the materials delivered in large sheets, I draw the sizes on the sheet that I want to cut then I cut them once I have done that I clean the edges and start to fold. Sometimes I paint before I bend, adding extra coats after bending.
A+W: Do you find yourself working in one medium at a time, or is it a flurry of different series of work all the time?
CM: It is one a time but all at once if that makes any sense. I do like mixing it up each day.
A+W: What is your studio and surrounding area like?
CM: My studio is in an industrial area in Botany in Sydney. My neighbors to the left are Panel beaters - lovely guys, and to my other side is a larger steel manufacturer. This is my third studio in the course of the past six years and I have been here for just over a year.
A+W: What music is normally on in the studio when you work?
CM: A mix of playlists with a mix of music, formula 1 podcasts, and audio books.
A+W: There exists a fundamental purity in each of your various forms, each one dynamically influencing the others. Which series did you create initially?
CM: Thank you. I started with abstract steel small standing sculptures, then some mobiles, and that led to steel lines drawings. I then moved into two types of folds [angular and a more fluid form] and totems. I have taken a break from the steel line drawings, but I may readdress the medium and explore it in a different way.
ARDEN + WHITE is delighted to introduce totem sculptures by Maconachie for direct inquiries and eagerly anticipates an exhibition of the work in the near future. For information on available works by Maconachie email gallery@ardenandwhitegallery.com.
