"Beyond the Great Divide" - Julie Williams & Hui Selwood

Hui Selwood has offered the following statement:

My cohort Julie Williams was offered a show at Jayes Gallery Molong and told me ‘Jayes’ has a wonderful sculpture garden that would suit my work and that I should join her for the show, after some reconnaissance work I absolutely agreed and did so.

Trained in art at the National Art School I’ve been exhibiting in Sydney and participating in many major sculpture prizes over the past fifteen years including being a finalist in ‘Sculpture by the Sea’ seven times and awarded the ‘Sawmillers Sculpture Prize’

In 2003 I acquired the Embleton and Weir Cordial Factory at Hill End, with the intention of setting up a studio. In the last few years I have been designing and building studios and renovating the Cordial Factory. Hill End is a historic gold mining town, located in the central tablelands of New South Wales, near Bathurst. In the 1940’s, artists such as Russell Drysdale, Donald Friend, Jean Bellette, Paul Haefliger and Magaret Olley lived and worked there. The decades proceeding enticed other artists such as John Olsen, Brett Whiteley, John Firth-Smith and many more to spend time there working and this is the case to the present day.

Abstract compositions in the materials of metal and wood, predominate my work although I will work in any material that I feel is necessary. The sculptural compositions for this show ‘Beyond the Great Divide’ at Jayes Gallery acknowledge an architectural quality, which stems from my interest in design, architecture and construction. These works continue to investigate architectural ideas and design with the emphasis on the vertical, referencing totems and figures. The totem is a subject, which has occupied me for years. Intrigued by the totems from various cultures and civilisations. My interest in the totem extends to the totem pole, where not only a connection has been established with my interest in architectural references but also with the figure, the quasi-representation of our selves. Questioning the need for humans to erect tall vertical structures from the times of Stonehenge to the modern high rise. There lies a curious parallel, the evolutionary steps of man from the horizontal to the vertical. These works are a response to totems from the past, contemporary architecture and to modern art.

Hui Selwood