Ahead of his group show with Greg Wood and Zoe Amor, we sat down with Australian sculptor Joel Sorensen to discuss his new body of work for 'Between the Pages of the Earth and Sky'.
OTOMYS: How do you understand your work in relation to the earth and the sky?
Joel Sorensen: The title of this exhibition Between the Pages of the Earth and Sky is wildly evocative, it brings a wide range of images to mind, ranging from the grand Tower of Babel to the simple leaves on a tree. Appreciating the vastness of nature is surely an elixir!
I create sculptures that are of the earth and the light and dark of the sky visually animates these objects.
Valhalla is a sculpture that references the idea of transformation; it offers us a voyage to another life, symbolised by boat and fire, from earth to sky.
OTOMYS: You live and work in the Castlemaine region of Victoria. How does your relationship to this beautiful part of the world inform your artistic practice?
Joel Sorensen: Having a bond to this place is the foundation of my artistic practice; it offers me a grounding and freedom to think and to be, both critical aspects for me to create.
OTOMYS: What is it that draws you to your selected medium, and through this medium what have you discovered about yourself?
Joel Sorensen: I salvage fallen timber and try to bring a sense of life to it. While life is always changing, a sculpture can hold a potent stillness. Wood is a material that was once a tree, and the tree was once a seed and the seed was once … stardust? Transformation - I’m interested in trying to alter a material in search of a state where there is some liberation from the associations of what the material is, the unconscious state perhaps. Creating sculpture from wood has drawn me to less representational expressions and furthered my level of experimentation.
Cement also has embedded transformation. It begins with clay modelling, to plaster casting, to cement sculpture and then it has this hidden alchemy for patination. It is the transformative life like nature of these mediums that draws me in.
