Artist of the day: Artist of the day, November 29: Ken Unsworth, Australian sculptor (Melbourne)

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Artist of the day, November 29: Ken Unsworth, Australian sculptor (Melbourne)

Ken Unsworth, (1931) (Kenneth Lowell Unsworth), is a sculptor, installation and performance artist, was born in Melbourne Australia. Despite growing up as a self-described typical Melbourne kid who loved football, trams and a beer, Unsworth has become one of Australia's most significant contemporary artists.

Ken Unsworth’s art is founded in the magic and mystery of hidden forces. His work spans four decades in many different mediums: site-specific land-based art, performance (with his own body used as a component in the presentation), motorised relief works, work with river stones (his Suspended stone circle II in the Art Gallery of NSW is one of Australia’s most popular public works), large bitumen drawings, maquettes, and room-sized installations.

He studied at the University of Melbourne, Melbourne Teachers College, and the National Art School, Sydney. He has held several teaching positions, including Lecturer in Sculpture, Sydney College of Advanced Education.

'Installation art is an artwork that encompasses an extended space. It suggests that art lies not in objects alone, but also in the experience of perception...Installation art can also be site-specific, time sensitive, interactive, environmental.'

The work of Ken Unsworth a contemporary Australian artist can relate to this statement due to the fact that his work is not just art in the objects alone but rather art in the experience the audience receives through their perception of his work. The objects, which make up his installations are taken from the everyday world, but juxtaposed in such a way as to generate new meanings.

His work is postmodern in the way it expands our ideas about what art is and how it can be explained. Through the conceptual frame, Ken Unsworth's work is linked to the Artist, World and Audience.

Unsworth's work becomes genuine collaboration, a genuine communication, because it is two-way, it's meaning not predetermined, but a joint construction between artist and viewer."
His work reflects his own life stories and links the world to his audience through his work.

Ken Unsworth's work encompasses an extended space by using sound, nature and everyday materials. The understanding of Ken Unsworth's work relies on our own individual experiences and imagination, therefore his work suggests that art lies not in objects alone, but also in the experience of perception.