“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us,”
Alexander Graham Bell
Ever since undergrad in sculpture in the early nineties I have made sculptures with doorways. First with ceramics then plywood and a paper mache one and now plasterboard and plaster.
“Art is a hidden doorway that can change people’s emotions.”
Akiane Kramarik
I’m not sure why I am transfixed by doorways in sculpture but maybe it is because it focuses you on the door void transporting you somewhere else or to find a space of emptiness and contemplation.
For the rest of the essay are images and text about my sculptures with doorways.
The Ocean Room was a video sculpture that I showed several times at Particle Gallery Clovelly, Sculpture by the Sea and Manning Regional Gallery.
It was made from plywood and was a rectangular box with a plywood stairwell leading up to a doorway and inside a TV I inherited from my grandmother pushed up to the door and with a Samsung VHS player underneath with a 30 min tape and auto replay option once the video got to the end would automatically rewind and play again. The video in the box was shot at Whale Beach with a small building a small plaster rectangular box with a door way being washed over by waves on the beach’s shoreline.
The sculpture was made while studying my masters in sculpture at COFA and the rationale was that I lived in a small apartment close to the beach in North Avalon and apart from studying just reading a lot mainly art books and surfing every day. If I didn’t go to class that day as the classes were in the evening then my friend Fernando would say the surf must be good today so Luke must be surfing.
The next sculpture with a doorway was called Cross Room and had a plasterboard cross structure on a white linen pillow and two small plywood tables precariously balanced on top of each other.
It had a doorway in the front with no video.
The rationale is that the crucifix isn’t just a symbol but a place that people live within come together over and take refuge in.
The next sculpture with a doorway was my first major work out of art school called Return to Sender which was a paper mache life size baby elephant made with newspaper and latex with the print showing through faintly.
The elephant wasn’t based on a real baby elephant but on a small black wood carved elephant that my grandfather got along with other, elephant
sculptures in India while he worked on an Australian hospital naval ship during the Second World War. It was gifted to me after he passed.
The back of the sculpture had a doorway and in it a small TV and a digital animation in it. I studied multi-media at Crow’s Nest Tafe to learn how to make this animation.
I think the work overflowed with too many ideas as it took about six months to make.
This work was made in response to the theme of the package for a group national Australian touring exhibition.
In the cavity in its back was a digital animation featuring flying elephants and reference to a boy’s own adventure. Admittedly the rationale behind this work is convoluted and confused reflecting my state of mind at the time I made this.
The last exhibition of the touring group show was at Flinders University Gallery.
The staff there offered to keep the elephant sculpture at the gallery in their collection as I lived in Sydney and the freight cost of returning the artwork would have been considerable.
However, I asked them to send it back to me. Sadly, soon afterwards I destroyed the sculpture because I was moving house and didn’t have the funds to keep it in storage. These days I regret that decision and this sculpture could exist in a galleries collection.
However, this destruction of the sculpture was incredibly cathartic and it gave the work a sense of closure.
After not making any doorways sculptures for over twenty years I returned to making them with four plasterboard and plaster of Paris that I showed at Kirra Hill Community Gallery.
The first was a remake of Ocean Room but much smaller and this time made from plasterboard and rough plaster of Paris and the stairwell made of cardboard.
The Liminal Zone/ With Bridges and Stairwells/ Tables are Places Where People Come Together is the title of my next doorway artwork.
“A liminal zone, or liminal space, is a transitional area or state of being, existing between two distinct conditions or stages. It’s a place of ambiguity and uncertainty, often characterized by a feeling of being “in-between”. The term comes from the Latin word “limen,” meaning threshold. Liminal spaces can be physical, like an empty hallway or airport, or psychological, like a period of adolescence or a time of major life change.”
Google Information
This video was at the local beach. It featured a wooden IKEA trestle table with a white top and three different small plaster and gyprock sculptures sitting on the table with the ocean behind.
The sculptures are sort of a mixture of simplified buildings and two with stairwells. I am not sure why I chose these formats but I was attempting to make simple spiritual structures where the rectangular doorway at the front is the focus. A sort of void.
I like doing shoots in this zone on the beach where the sea meets the shore and washes back and forth.
I think tables are where people come together to meet and socialise, eat or work.
I am not sure what effect my art has on people who view it but I hope it makes people happy like the following Mackillop quote Australia’s saint.
“Find happiness in making others happy.”
Mary MacKillop
“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”
Francis of Assis
When I was browsing for a quote to go with this essay, I liked this one by Saint Francis as it reminded me of the beautiful light while we did the shoot at the beach and I feel it drove away many shadows of mine in retrospect.
There were three plaster and plasterboard sculptures that I used several times in sculpture and photo and video projects.
The next was: Thinking Outside the Box for Spiritualism in Action
“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future”.
Bradley Whitford
In this video photo shoot, I am wearing a maroon Connor suit and a TEMU straw hat holding a simple cardboard sculpture I made months ago and Converse shoes.
The idea behind it is spiritualism in action and lateral thinking to find happiness in my life.
“Logic will never change emotion or perception.”
Edward De Bono
This is a quote by the late intellectual Edward de Bono who coined the phrase lateral thinking. I hope by employing lateral thinking that I can learn how to be more, happy more often.
This is the definition of lateral thinking:
lateral thinking
Noun
the solving of problems by an indirect and creative approach, typically through viewing the problem in a new and unusual light.
The following quote is about the nature of happiness:
“Happiness cannot be travelled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”
Denis Waitley
I feel the pursuit of happiness in my life is as important as the pursuit of spiritualism in my art, writing, life and what I eat and exercise.
In conclusion perhaps I have made boxes with doorways over the years to its natural end and hope to come up with different ideas now.
