Constance ARI

Wooden sculptural constructions with curves

Snug presents the viewer with things that offer no obvious reason for their being, that is, the objects are not useful to us in the way constructed things usually are.

The artworks exist as isolated entities within the already isolated white cube of the gallery. On one level it is obvious that they are art and that is the reason for their being, but on another level they do not reveal much about themselves as art and thus leave us wondering about how they are acting as artworks.

The carefully constructed forms offer the viewer their exterior surfaces and their beautiful material qualities but they simultaneously conceal their interiors and their meaning, which is withheld within the nexus between the artist's decision to make and present and the viewers attempt to read them as vessels of meaning.

The snugly fitting joints between the steam bent wooden staves are the result of careful attention to the production of each element that makes up the whole thing. It is the way the final result, a complete thing, is constructed from numerous intimately shaped pieces bought together with care and struggle that can give us access to a meaningful content. These artworks present us not only with form but evidence of time spent working in an archaic and outmoded fashion to bend and shape a resistant material to conform to a unified structure. Ironically it is always the case that the material asserts its inherent being upon the maker and leads the artist toward an unplanned and unknown result.

The urge to render artworks symbolic reveals our desire to bring them into the fold of our understanding, which also makes them useful to us by conforming them to the constraints of our knowledge system. These artworks attempt to resist this transformation and to assert their being as what they are while at the same time tempting us with their simple form to make them meaningful to us.

Langridge has exhibited in numerous exhibitions including; Sculpture Trail, Mountain Sculpture Festival, Hobart (2004), Future Perfect, Bett Gallery, Hobart (2003) and Sculpture by the Sea, Sydney (2001). He is currently undertaking a PhD at the Tasmanian School of Art, University of Tasmania at Hobart where he is also employed as the Art Forum Co-ordinator.