Overarching discourse

[My generation was raised on a diet of ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘South Park’, for whom postmodern irony and cynicism is a default setting, I have a pragmatic idealism, a moderate fanaticism ; my art explores tension between sincerity and irony.]

Timotheus Vermeulen & Robin van den Akker in ‘Notes on metamodernism’, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010.

Downloads and academic resources

2015 Martin George Master of Fine art Thesis, Academic advisor Dr.Michael Graeve, RMIT University

2016 Solo Show Kraftwerk Berlin

2018 Lorne Biennale

2022 Solo Show ECC, Venice Biennale, Lost Isms

My public penance

Lorne Biennale 2018

On first glance, My public penance appears to be the classic monumental abstract sculpture pointing upwards to the sky, predictable in the curved shape of each element, although perhaps slightly out of place on the coastal landscape. The visitor may initially think the forms have been commissioned for a town square or forecourt of a city building. It is at this point that the deceit of the work begins to take hold of the spectator. In its complete form the sculpture is a folly that exists on the site for less than twenty-four hours before being ceremoniously desecrated and chopped down following the official opening of the Biennale, dragged in pieces by Martin George to be suspended from the boughs of the large Morton Bay Fig tree adjacent to the Lorne Life Saving Club.

The tearing down of his own work reflects George’s circumspection at being a sculptor in this age when ‘issues such as deforestation, pollution and war are all symptoms of selfishness whilst in power’. The public act of destruction of the modernist monolithic structure is his way of ‘putting myself in the place of the perpetrator, I want to cut down my own thicket of colossal sculptures with an axe, dragging them by hand to their final location in a public place, mounting the structures in a large tree. The chopped stumps will remain in the ground as a land intervention and relic.  I'm suggesting that we often speak of 'others' engaging in destructive practices, but I too perform acts that are selfish, and these actions affect those around me.

 George’s work is exhibited widely throughout Australia and internationally where he is represented in Germany.  Many of his ‘standard issue’ modernist forms grace the rarefied world of private collections.  Yet, as the leading expert in contemporary Australian sculpture, Ken Scarlett succinctly explains of George’s practice, ‘while Martin George can undoubtedly make a totally convincing piece of modernist sculpture, viewable from all directions and immaculately constructed, he also likes in catching the spectator unawares. Things are frequently not quite as they first seem’. 

Curated by Lara Nicholls

Thoughts 2/3/2017

My current research investigates the juncture between the language of modernism and the desire to breathe expressive narratives into this older form. Through the juxtaposition of different traditions of materiality and every-day, I want to explore the failure of post-modernism and how to reconcile a pragmatic optimism of irony and sincerity. The aesthetic execution of these ideas have opened the following enquiries;

 ·         How can the partial obstruction of a sculptural form through burying or visual omission enhance the viewer’s understanding of a structure’s conceptual premise?

·         How can an extrusion adequately enhance the elegance of the human form without losing information through the obfuscation of detail?

·         What is the optimal number of Kinematic dimensions in a deconstructed form to help the representation of human dynamism?

·         How does the use of precious materials and rare surface treatments alter the viewer’s engagement with monumental sculptural forms?

A Pivoting 31/8/2016

(Catalogue extract form Berliner Liste 2016, Industrial Pommel)

Sprint up, jump, swing wildly, exit.tixe ,yldliw gniws ,pmuj ,pu tnirpS. Now consider dextrously approaching a movement, centrifugue through it, exit nearly gracefully. Hold on, hold on… Can one retrace such moves? Thankfully, for each elegant action – and of course for the markers of history – there is a form and a memory that promises to double backwards for us: it's surely why culture ends up with formal memorials. But truthfully, what remains of the form previously traced, and what remains of the trace previously formed? Do they give rise to essences or abstractions? Intimacies or deferrals? Fundamentally, do they touch the core or do they flash across surfaces as if at speed? The new clashes against the old, reflections ricochet, references rebound. Hold on, hold on tight to the pommel.

1) Needless to say, movement might here refer to either a movement, or to a movement, or to both, though the latter is the most likely, particularly given the aesthleticism of the sculptural forms employed for their significantly heightened materiality performed in this case, surely a cheekily calculated signifying materiality on which the meaning of this work so emphatically pivots?

Dr.Michael Graeve

Lecturer, RMIT School of Art (Sound; Sculpture and Spatial Practice; MFA Program; Expanded Studio Practice)

Thoughts 2/6/2015

(Catalogue Extract from the Churchie 2015, Griffith University)

My square extrusions are an expression of human form or movement through my own lens and interpretation, this juncture is where I find myself wrestling with the language of modern minimalism and the desire to breathe expressive narratives into this older form.

Hal Foster believes that when it comes to expressionism, that both Kandinsky and any realist are basically the same. The realist is trying to represent a reality; Kandinsky is trying to represent imagination or symbolism. Foster concludes that the self is either fictitious, socially constructed or a prisoner of the human body. In any case, he concludes that true expressionism is linked to many things other than pure animalistic outpouring. It is the combination of considering my own personal preferences and calibration to societal forces that helps guide my path as a sculptor.

The Genesis of Embrace came from an image of my mother Stefica holding my son Max, where I abstracted an expressive extrusion, I then worked out through trial and error the best way for the forms to intersect. I wanted the two forms to be more formal, but let their fluidity determine emotion, I wanted a sweet narrative to be portrayed in harsh cold stainless steel.