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 

 

Solstice – of darkness and light, images of work

Here are some images of my work in the exhibition, a group of seven concrete and mixed media objects, titled Dust from a distant sun. Here's how I described it in our show media:

This installation of cast concrete, iron-oxide pigment, clay, coral, leather, wax, aluminium and gold is a meditation on the changing lightscapes throughout our days, and on the heaviness of time irrevocably passing. Vast cloudy afternoons, starry nights, long forgotten mornings; once gone, never to return. The objects–containers, vessels, industrial-organic forms–stand seemingly together, grouped like planets or a constellation, yet each ultimately alone, perhaps carrying the same melancholy that contemplating the enormous universe sometimes evokes. Comforting, the warmth of the sun is always present, as light connecting the works and illuminating the gently rendered surfaces.

photo: ©Aurelia Yeomans

Inari Kiuru: Dust from a distant sun (2015), installation of seven objects made of concrete, clay, leather, foam, wax, crystal, paint, aluminium, gold leaf and iron oxide pigment.

All photos except one by © Inari Kiuru 2015.

Solstice – of darkness and light exhibition

Image: Inari Kiuru (2015) Solstice, giclee print on archival art paper, 380 x 430 mm, edition of 20

Solstice – of darkness and light

Aurelia Yeomans
Inari Kiuru
Naoko Inuzuka

A solstice marks the two brief moments during an astronomical year when day and night meet at their longest and shortest. This changing metaphorical relationship between dreaming and wakefulness, the conscious and the unconscious, and the natural cycles around and within us, is the focus of Solstice –
of darkness and light, an installation of contemporary jewellery, object and image.

fortyfivedownstairs
June 23 - July 4 2015
45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne 3000

Opened by Dr Kirsten Haydon, RMIT University, Melbourne
and Mary-Lou Jelbart, Artistic Director, fortyfivedownstairs


A heartfelt thank you to everyone who saw our show, either in the gallery or through online images. Especially big thanks to our partners, friends, families, teachers and mentors whose support and help was invaluable in realising our first independent exhibition. More images of the work and gallery in the next posts!