Funaki guest posts on materiality 3: Concrete

And finally, here's my third offering in the guest post series for Funaki, last winter during the early days of the pandemic when the gallery was closed and we were looking for alternative ways to communicate and interact. I wrote about materials I use, know and love: enamel, steel and concrete. Here's concrete! 

I was fortunate to discover this interesting character almost by accident. Some years ago, a bag from Bunnings was my leap of faith (yup, a panic solution) while planning a sculptural installation with no equipment to fabricate metal in a large scale. Concrete offered an alternative to work without heat or special tools, and allowed free experimentation without financial concerns. Soon, there was no return. 

At first glance–feel–concrete is heavy and dense, cool to the touch. It carries associations of construction and the industrial; of urban structures and surfaces; of my immediate world and visual interests. It can be rough, or polished like smooth marble, and is a reliable protector of fragile materials, such as glass, embedded. - From an intimate distance, concrete also reveals its sensual and sensitive side. Toned with natural pigments, the shades resonate with things I keep returning to: The light at dusk and dawn; the changing skies, seasons and weather patterns … all somehow connected to our own human emotions in flux. This poetic nature of concrete keeps surprising and captivating me. 

Finally, I think it’s great concrete is used by thousands of DIY enthusiasts, for all sorts of objects and ornaments. This gives it a democratic, joyous quality. Anyone can use concrete, giving such obvious satisfaction to those who may not otherwise be creatively engaged. It’s the material of inspiration and possibility! 

Images (including the floor of Funaki on Crossley St): Inari Kiuru, 2015-2020 

 

Funaki guest posts on materiality 2: Steel

Last winter during the early pandemic days of 2020, the physical gallery space closed, Funaki's artists were invited to create guest posts in Instagram, about anything we liked. Here's my second entry on materials I use and love (please also see the previous blog post about enamel). 

Let’s talk about STEEL. I love steel. It’s a metal that’s been with me from the start, for practical and aesthetic reasons. 

First, I love the applications of steel in our urban environment: The intricate metal structures and tall cranes at construction sites; huge diggers like strange animals; ships and sea containers, the battered back doors of trucks. I love the ordinariness of this material and the divinely beautiful way it surrenders to its environments, accepting scratches, stains, rust … the marks of time, never losing its integrity. 

I can weld steel, making jewellery pieces and vessels structurally safe while subjected to high heat in the kiln for enamelling or colouring. Soldered seams will reflow and collapse in temperatures over 800 Celcius whereas welded connections (metal joined to itself with electricity) remain intact. Anyone who works with steel also knows it can be temperamental as it rusts (maddeningly!) easily and is harder to cut and clean than precious metals. Sometimes its sharp edges make you bleed. But all is forgiven for its amazing scale of expression: I love the deep blues of heated mild steel, the chemical, snowflake-like zinc patterns on galvanized surfaces and the elegant grays they turn into when heated (although this process is toxic.). 

I love the shine. precision and strength of stainless steel, as well as the warm rusted tones and quiet stories told by old, abandoned pieces. I love the way stained steel sometimes looks like silk, sometimes like a landscape–but always still like steel. 

Images: Inari Kiuru 2008-2020, Mild and galvanized steel 

 

airport, flughafen, aeropuerto, lentokentta ...

Last year, I saw many airports inside and out, under many different lights and weather conditions, and tried to document these experiences with my small phone camera. I find the muted, controlled colours of vast flat surfaces dotted with bright detail very beautiful. I love the angles and forms of machines and structures framing the large fields of space and sky. Really love.

I made this quick piece on the last morning of the fantastic Swiss jeweller David Bielander's workshop, following some intense study of those collected phone photos. I welded galvanised steel and mild steel together, then treated the piece in a kiln, and added some areas of enamel paint.

For a long time, I couldn't quite see (or rather, feel) what this object was about, even though there was a direct connection to my images and experiences. The intuitive and rapid fabrication probably contributed to the initial "numbness", too, plus at the time I was recovering from a worst cold ever -- caught in a plane back to Australia just days before! : )

However as I'm studying it again now, through camera, in preparation for further work on the theme, I feel that perhaps there is some type of life in it after all. It makes me interested to try and see how better communicate dense, strong structures and open spaces in one piece.

Just wanted to post it for myself to archive, and to ponder it a bit more on-screen. Next, I'll be making a small series, continuing from this object, under the idea of air/ports for the upcoming exhibition Heat Exchange in Arizona. The show will focus on contemporary enamelling, and bring together artists from several continents. Exciting!! You can check out and learn more about the participants and their processes and thoughts here. I'll be continuing the exploration of airports and objects over there, too.

I'm also hoping to develop some larger scale object work around similar materials and forms as shown here. We'll see ... Next, unpacking the samples from Doris Betz's intensive master class last month. The working year has really begun. Yay!

night flight

Lately, I've been collating photos of my work in preparation of a website (knock on wood!!), and found some older pieces which I haven't yet posted here.

The dark piece above was originally a part of a larger work, and a sister to the 'white flight' pendant.

Night flight, 2010, enamel on mild steel, 18ct gold
White flight, 2010, enamel on mild steel, 18ct gold

Man jewellery!

Inari Kiuru 2011, Armour for the heart. Steel, glass. 

MANJEWELLERY was a project initiated by the amazing jewellist Melissa Cameron and published at Crafthaus website in 2011.

My theme for the two brooches, especially created for this virtual exhibition, was 'protection', something masculine in form but universal in nature, designed to shield and to ground.

Photograph by Marc Morel © 2011 Modelled by Shaun Tan, Marcos Guzman
Inari Kiuru 2011, Windy day anchor. Lead, iron, 18ct gold. 2011

Let us be lovers / New Jersey industrial landscapes

Let us be lovers (New Jersey Industrial landscapes), 2010

Mild steel, enamel, brass, wood, magnets, cold enamel

Photo (top): Jeremy Dillon / Photo (others): Lily Feng; Courtesy of Craft Victoria

This body of work reflects the landscapes I saw and photographed from a train, during a trip from NYC to New Jersey in the winter of 2009. It's the first series of objects I've fabricated from mild steel by welding, and experimented further with the use of liquid enamels, after being introduced to them by Elizabeth Turrell in Perth, in April 2010. Let us be lovers (the title is a reference to the lyrics of Simon & Garfunkel's America) was a steep learning curve for me, inspired further pieces and explorations, and was selected as a finalist for Craft Victoria's annual Fresh!-award for graduating students.

Work for Bell Weather, our Graduate Exhibition 2010

Artists:

Kim Victoria Wearne
Anita van Doorn
Colly Lu
Bin Dixon-Ward
Inari Kiuru
Soo Jeong Jo
Courtney Jackson
Marcos Guzman
Emi Fukuda
Emily Drummond
Lauren Joffe
Timothy Smullen
Alysha Batliwalla
Romy Mittelman
Sarah Fletcher
Chloë Powell


Finally, the assessment is over, work finished (almost : D, i've just been granted the permission to do some very final welding) , and our graduation exhibition Bell Weather mounted, opened and running successfully.

To me, it's a beautiful, personal show and I appreciate every piece in it: Having travelled with my fellow students for three years, all the work in the exhibition speaks about the experiences, learning, challenges and changes we've all gone through, and most of all, of the passion and creative discoveries of each individual. I hope you get to see it too.

It's at 1000 Pound Bend, 361 Little Lonsdale St (just 30 metres uphill from Elizabeth Street), very central Melbourne until next Friday the 12th, 6 pm. Welcome!

Here are some snapshots, taken in low light, from my work at the show. It's a small selection from this year's projects, and I'm reasonably happy how things turned out. It was great fun and a deep adventure researching and creating the works. I've been saying that it feels as if I've found a path or direction of some sort, creatively, and really look forward seeing where it can take me, and the other way round.

The main materials this year have been steel and enamel, often constructed by welding, to safely take the heat of the kiln. I've also been experimenting with various other materials, such as glass and wax. Without further ado, the titles of the work are:



Table 1 - Silversmithing, from the largest vessel anti-clockwise:

Honey Blossom Sting / spun, etched steel, copper, enamel

Orange container from Let us be lovers – New Jersey industrial landscapes series / mild steel, sugar fired enamel. The series gets its name from the opening line of the old Simon & Garfunkel ballad 'America' which was playing in my head when we took a train from Manhattan to New Jersey last winter. The objects are based on the photos from that journey.

Evening emerges from Day meets night series / mild steel, galvanised steel,
enamel, liquid gold

Fragile nightmares from Day meets night series / mild steel shim, etched and heat coloured

Andalucia brooch / mild steel, glass, 925 silver, stainless steel pin















(More objects from the New Jersey series, photographed by Jeremy Dillon 2010.)


Table 2: Jewellery

Selected pieces from Winter thoughts (between two summers) series
mild steel, enamel, glass, brass, encaustic wax, safety pins, steel coated copper mesh

* * *

At the end of the exhibition images, some of the background / process images too.
Hope to see you at the show!













"To me, creating objects and jewellery feels exactly like playing and discovering new things did as a child. There is a timeless sense of wonder about bringing abstract concepts, ideas and inner worlds into a tangible form, and witnessing how raw ingredients begin to take on a life of their own. I enjoy experimenting with different materials, learning their language as we spend time together, taking a few risks to see what would happen if ...

I am curious, and I definitely want there to be madness in my method.

As an artist my key objective is to never lose my sense of humour – or of the absurd. Examining our immediate environment, the strange depths of the most mundane things and interactions, is my way of looking for light. A way to survive in this world. There are maps in the dirt, stories in wrinkled wrappers, and whole histories discarded on roadsides. Taking time to honour and share these observations through making feels not only like magic, but like a constant renewal of some kind of human hope. I would like my work to convey this."

Inari Kiuru November 2010


And here, some images leading up to the final works:



Partly finished steel objects, and an etched aluminium cone for the other large vessel.



Etching Honey Blossom Sting the Swedish way (ja ja!)– in an IKEA rubbish bin!
The copper sulfate and salt liquid I've been using works especially well if
mixed with hot water.




Vessel with a copper flange which has a steel support with prongs,
and another large spun vessel with shifted enamel, not yet ready.
I had a lot of trouble getting the enamel to stay on the golden coloured
piece, it kept pinging off in a circular pattern, perhaps because I didn't
prepare the steel surface well enough (emerying off spinning ridges).



Sprayed with Klyrfire and water mix, shifted. I thought at the time
that the shifting was maybe too thick at places, perhaps that's why
the enamel surface was rather uneven initially, and kept breaking.





The welded steel top and an aluminium insert. The top
now has texta drawings of cranes and a thick coat of encaustic
wax – will post a photo as soon as I get a chance to take a proper one.



One of the smaller trivets I made for hanging delicate objects in the kiln.



Etched steel plate and shim; a smaller etched steel vessel
and the beginnings of Fragile nightmares.




My bench at uni, leading up to the final weeks : )

And as a post-scriptum, some images of the Winterthoughts pieces taken in a better light, later on.