Friday, March 12, 2010

'Fabrication' by Marian Shapiro

Above: Nola (president Mosaic Association of Australia and New Zealand) and Marian at Marian's exhibition opening



"Fabrication" is on show from 10th to 21st March at Breathing Colours Gallery. Meet the artist Saturday 20th March 2-4pm at Breathing Colours Gallery.

Award-winning mosaic artist, Marian Shapiro makes original, hand-crafted, contemporary mosaic pieces using traditional techniques. Originally trained in art and theatre, she became fascinated by the possibilities of this ancient art and has been a full-time mosaicist since 2003. Shown and collected nationally and internationally, she has been commissioned by many private clients in Australia, the UK and USA and has several recent public and commercial commissions in Sydney.

Marian's recent works explore the verisimilitude of familiar objects to suggest that things are not as they appear.

"Materials play a major role in creating illusion within my works. The process of cutting and shaping also transforms them into something new. In using dense materials, such as glass and stone, I translate them into flowing forms while retaining the illusion of softness and pliability."

Marian states that: "In using sculptural forms to represent the ‘essence’ of an object, I draw on its history and our expectations of it within the contemporary world.

In “Fabrication”, glass curtains flap wildly – yet there is no breeze. Traditional patterns decorate cushions – yet their hard surface belies their history of comfort and promise of softness. "In oscillating between the familiar and the bizarre, and the reality and the artifice, I aim to create a slight feeling of displacement and provoke new ways of looking at familiar objects."