An overview of KickArts major projects since 1993. This event includes the work of eleven artists and covers a diversity of mediums including forged metal furniture and installation environments. This exhibition represents a selection of artwork produced over the last five years through major curated events and exhibitions by KickArts Collective. September 1997 The Tanks Arts Centre, Cairns March 1998 Queensland University Arts Museum, Brisbane THE ARTISTS Melissa Waters Russell Milledge Darryl Ely Sulja Raam Nezovic Leah Grycewicz Catherine Jacoby Lenore Howard Dadang Christanto Zane Saunders Ed Koumans Jill Chism       Sulja Raam Nezovic Kali Couch 120x90x60cm Forged steel & fabric Blues Point Lamp 230x65x65 Forged steel Vincent's Stand 153x50x50 Forged & cast steel Soft Table 120x60x40 Vinyl upholstery / forged steel   Artist's Statement As a jeweller, I have gravitated more and more to furniture design as an expression of form and utility. I am impressed by the functionality of furniture as a human artefact and challenged by the technical need to make each piece durable as well as comfortable. In many cases I pursue a personal aesthetic in design. For a number of years I have worked primarily in steel, but most of my recent works have included soft furnishings and timber. When I approach the creation of a work I view the design phase as a kind of floating world in which ultimately everything sinks or swims. I sometimes create directly in the medium but it is mostly after the design phase, when buoyed by craft and strengthened by technique, I endeavour to create pieces for a conscious human purpose that are hopefully devoid of the superficial. I pursue the essence of good design, as a journey involving the practical, intuitive, emotional and metaphoric. Lenore Howard Female Circumcision 180x120cm Gesso, charcoal, brass, nails on board 1995 Womb of the Unknown Soldier 180x120cm Gesso, charcoal, collage. acrylic 1995   Artist's Statement: 'Female Circumcision The logical area of my work is the means of making an image. The reality of the work is an underlying narrative where signals reading the story, are delivered through a personal selection and placement of symbols. Melissa Waters Memory Mat 1 metre radius Painted broken pottery A Hard Life 46x65x72 Timber/glass /artificial vegetables, fruit, cutlery. Colander / light         Video Wardrobe 45x100x154 Timber and mirrors / video Dreaming Couch 164x64x61cm Painted canvas upholstery / timber / springs and bullet shells Artist's Statement From original ideas to creating the completed artwork, the journeys of discovery that eventuate along the way are as important a part of the process for me as the finished artworks. The unlimited directions that evolve from the initial concept often changes the end result. I seek to allow for this and the viewer's personal experiences to come into the reading - using the mind to fill in the blanks and to make the connections. Darryl Ely Wingless Ornithopter 50x40x15 Forged Iron Artist's Statement I specialise in wrought iron and use an air inducted gas forge. I am using the iron as a base medium for design furniture, object d'art and sculpture and have collaborated with the Clydesdayle Forge, Jana Iriyadi and Martino Ceramics. Catherine Jacoby The Last Great Train Ride: (5 works) In Town Outback 40x60 cm Photos framed on grid Forged and Riveted A Loss Maintaining the Line George in Pursuit of Another Mango Diary 59x60cm Etched plates   Artist's Statement Multi media was chosen to express the story of a 100 year old community service that the Queensland Government ceased in March of 1995. Seeing injustice and lack of creative vision in such a decision which had great potential for cultural awareness in the tourism niche prompted this artwork.   Jill Chism Installation 2 Painted tables, tablecloth, pots, pans, water, images and labels Artist's statement My installation includes further investigation of reductionist views of identity. I intend to use literalism to reveal its inadequacy and thereby the failure of words and labels to fully describe. The approach makes some humorous references to literalism commencing with initial expectations created by the title. Ed Koumans   Tribal Dolls   Artist's Statement The tribal dolls forming Ed's frieze of figurines invite subjective readings around ritual, ceremony and the 'primitive other'. Association arising from dolls and their display are potent metaphors. Pertinent too is the act of transformation - Barbie dolls embalmed are the metamorphosis of urban materialistic toys into symbols of ritualistic process. The aesthetic here is one of homage to the integrity of indigenous art. Leah Grycewicz Video for Give Me Five Artist's Statement 5 hours of video down to 25 minutes is really compressing these women's lives into fragments. I merged the animation with the narrative to create an art documentation style. Rigel Best created some additional sound for the finished video. The overall feel of the video is a wee glimpse into the lives of 5 Tableland women. Imagine yourself passing an open window on a windy day. Russell Milledge The Corporeal Traveller       Artist's Statement emotionally attached to the exotic. cast from the local. I arrive, baggage at hand. another place, another world. in these new and unfamiliar surroundings I; acclimatise, become sensually aware. the continuity of my existence is reduced to bones. a demonstration of place a geographical subversion. I am separate a difference to the new texture. dislocated I can no longer take myself for granted. in a corporeal way - I am an object reinstated and diverse. The installation I have created for this exhibition is concerned with the accommodation of objects. Cabinets become a venue for a collection of artefacts. The gallery becomes a venue for an installation. Artefacts, like people have their own chronological history, their own itinerary, their own life moving through time. My cabinets juxtapose artefact and specimen in the human and the animal world. Here culture and colony, local and exotic find little distinction. This installation subverts the distance between objects and describes another world, a unique itinerary that identifies the corporeal traveller. Zane Saunders 'The Heart is so Numb (in giving and receiving) Dadang Christanto 'The Heads of Seekers for Independance'