PENNY HARRIS

Artist Statement

The experience of looking at small metal finds from the Paphos theatre site, and remnants of slag from foundries, was a pivotal moment for me as a sculptor. I remember particularly a pot discovered with bones and rags near the old terebinth tree in the centre of the theatre.

The casting and patination process  makes a connection to the narratives of archaeology. When I learnt about the phenomenon of the pseudomorph  the material of bronze changed its meaning for me. This is a term used in archaeology where, for example, a common ceramic shape is translated into metal.  I realized I could cast fragile objects like rags or shoes in bronze. Today we use the same process as that of the ancient crucible for heating molten metal, but on a larger scale. 

My bigger project is to look at traces that speak of ancient craftspeople, metalworkers and miners. Copper especially has become a preoccupation, investigating Bronze Age shipwrecks with copper ingots. Viewing the layers of oxides on the surface of rocks in Cypriot copper mines influenced the patinations I use, just as Valentinos Charalambos the great Limassol potter has used celadonite from the mines for his glazes.

Fire was the primary technology of antiquity both for ceramics and for making lime plaster. I was influenced by the frescoes of fillets in the theatre to cast vertical drops of fabric in bronze. I’m interested in the ordinary object such as a brush or a child’s shirt for its poetic narrative. The marvellous objects preserved from the Salamis funeral pyre in the Cyprus Museum made me understand the power of fire.

The early industries still connect to our contemporary crafts.  To understand the intricacies of the processes of ceramic, plaster, metalworking and stone is to understand archaeology. Trade was implicit to ancient itinerant tinworkers and tinkers, who remade and reused scraps of bronze, just as artists do today.  Wollongong has the largest steel making industry in Australia and I used to raid their scrap heaps. I feel a connection to long lineage of bronze, copper and tin in Cyprus through the history of myself as a bronze worker.

Penny Harris, 2017.

Biography

Penny Harris has a Bachelor of Creative Arts and Doctor of Creative Arts from  University of Wollongong, Australia. She is a bronze sculptor using “lost wax” casting of found objects, underpinned by an interest in excavation fieldwork and research. Travelling to the Pafos theatre site in 2010 engendered evocative pieces cast from ephemeral objects. She is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Wollongong, exhibiting in Canada (Montreal) and Australia (Sydney and Wollongong). Her work is held in private and national collections.

www.pennyharrissculpture.com