stuart elliott

causeway III: flawed obstructions

7 march - 5 april 2008

Stuart Elliott is one of Western Australia’s most respected contemporary artists, with a professional career spanning more than thirty years.

His work is primarily focused on the relationship between nature and human ‘progress’; he employs the aesthetics of industry and the urban environment to symbolise capitalist excess, while his surreal, fleshy images of the natural world serve to question the relationship between nature and artifice. His two and three-dimensional works display a sense of gothic drama, often offset by dark humour. Over recent years he has concentrated on sculptural installations and representational paintings depicting industrial wastelands and surreal naturescapes.

In 2005 Stuart received a Creative Development Fellowship from ArtsWA, in recognition of his contribution to contemporary art in Western Australia. The first stage of this project was exhibited in Sydney in 2006 as Views from the Causeway. His current exhibition moves from views from a metaphorical structure to actually including a sculptural causeway, spanning some eighteen metres. Also on exhibition will be a series of table sculptures, floor installations, and paintings.

Stuart has written of his new work, it “is an extension of that which was begun in the second half of 2005 and focuses on the tension between two themes, that of mobility or travel facilitation, and that of the static or haven like space/s. These two premises are deliberately further eroded by choice of imagery in that the 'static' is symbolised by the Box Car - a hybrid of Seatainor & Nissin Hut - both structures which are as much associated with the transient as they are with the providence of a mechanically protective environment, and the Causeway itself - a post and beam structure - evolved to offer a stable and dependable route across an otherwise difficult terrain or through a contested environment.”

Stuart was included in the critically acclaimed Focus exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, curated by John Stringer, in 2007. John McDonald wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald, “...the stand out figure is Stuart Elliott... If we look for comparisons closer to home, it is painfully obvious how superior Elliott’s work is to that of Callum Morton, who has been showered with curatorial favours, including a solo show at the MCA and a trip to the Venice Biennale.”

Stuart’s work is represented in every major Western Australian collection including the Art Gallery of Western Australia, City of Perth, BankWest, Kerry Stokes, Holmes a Court, University of Western Australia, Curtin University of Technology, Murdoch and Edith Cowan University Collections, Royal Perth Hospital and countless private collections in addition to the Sanyi Wood Sculpture Museum in Taiwan. Stuart has exhibited work throughout Australia, as well as in China, Singapore, The Philippines, Taiwan, England and Scotland, and undertaken residencies in Taiwan, England, Scotland and throughout regional Western Australia. In 2004, Western Australian art critic Dr. David Bromfield published FAKEOLOGY a major monograph contextualising Stuart’s practice over the past three decades.

stuart elliott artwork
causeway
wood, cardboard, acrylic paint, varnich
dimensions varied
2008
$29,700 sold
stuart elliott artwork
harlequin II
wood, steel, gourd, string, oil paint
110 x 189 x 29cm
2008
$3,300 sold
stuart elliott artwork
wall
oil on rigid ply
60 x 120cm
2007-08
$4,400 sold
stuart elliott artwork
isolated boxcar
oil on board
30 x 20cm
2007
$660 sold
stuart elliott artwork
unit
wood, steel, ceramic, oil paint
130 x 161 x 38cmcm
2008
$6,600
stuart elliott artwork
providence
wood steel, cardboard, oil paint
150 x 161 x 42cm
2008
$7,700 sold
stuart elliott artwork
matrix
oil on rigid ply
60 x 120cm
2007-08
$4,400 sold
stuart elliott artwork
left babel plant
oil on board
30 x 20cm
2008
$660 sold
stuart elliott artwork
relic
wood, steel, ceramic, oil paint
116 x 128 x 59cm
2008
$5,500
stuart elliott artwork
IKE
wood, steel, oil paint
115 x 165 x 29cm
2008
$5,500 sold
stuart elliott artwork
thermopolis
wood, steel, oil paint, cardboard, resin
67 x 132 x 102cm
2003
$7,700
stuart elliott artwork
containers
oil on board
30 x 20cm
2008
$660 sold
stuart elliott artwork
e wall
wood, steel
35 x 76 x 25cm
2007-08
$1,100 sold
stuart elliott artwork
hoppers
wood, cardboard, oil paint
dimensions varied [x12]
2004-08
$5,500 sold
stuart elliott artwork
yard II
wood, acrylic paint, varnish
7 x 153 x 26cm
2008
$1,800
stuart elliott artwork
l wall
wood, steel
42 x 69 x 21cm
2007
$2,200 sold
stuart elliott artwork
s wall
wood, acrylic paint, varnish
52 x 75 x 28cm
2008
$2,200 sold
stuart elliott artwork
braun maze
wood, steel, acrylic paint, varnish
15 x 153 x 29cm
2007
$1,800
stuart elliott artwork
carl bolton transit
wood, oil paint
12 x 33 x 8cm [x9]
2007
$3,300 sold
stuart elliott artwork
com III
wood, steel, oil paint, paper
85 x 109 x 109cm
2007
$7,700
stuart elliott artwork
depot
wood, aluminium, oil paint
29 x 50 x 17cm [x7]cm
2003
$5,500 sold
stuart elliott artwork
right babel plant
oil on board
29 x 19cm
2008
$660 sold
stuart elliott artwork
old boxcar
oil on board
19 x 30cm
2008
$660 sold
stuart elliott artwork
stricken boxcars
oil on board
20 x 30cm
2008
$660 sold
stuart elliott artwork
termini
oil on board
21 x 420cm
2008
$850 sold
stuart elliott artwork
thistle
oil on board
16 x 12cm
2005
$300 sold
stuart elliott artwork
island II
oil on board
20 x 31cm
2008
$660 sold
stuart elliott artwork
spent urbaliths
oil on board
20 x 30cm
2007
$660 sold
stuart elliott artwork
L wall
oil on board
20 x 30cm
2007
$660
stuart elliott artwork
view from causeway
oil on board
18 x 16cm
2007
$400 sold
stuart elliott artwork
red engulfment
oil on board
18 x 42cm
2007
$770 sold
stuart elliott artwork
green engulfment
oil on board
18 x 42cm
2008
$770 sold
stuart elliott artwork
island
oil on rigid ply
60 x 120cm
2007-08
$4,400 sold
stuart elliott artwork
island I
oil on board
20 x 30cm
2007
$660 sold