Jesse Cox talks to Jason Christopher
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Daily Telegraph Article “Sculptor Jason Christopher showcasing works such as Fertility Totem Fetish at Salerno Gallery in Glebe”
SYDNEY ANNUAL – THE 2011 REPORT – ON ACHIEVEMENT & PHILANTHROPY
Wentworth Courier Article – Jason Sculpts a New Career
Article from Wentworth Courier:
Wentworth Courier, Wednesday, August 3, 2011; Page 11
“Jason Sculpts a New Career
By: KEVIN CHENG
JASON Christopher quit his job several years ago and is pursuing his dream as a professional sculptor.
The 41-year-old from Bondi specialises in techbased sculptures, which are not easily labelled as either ‘‘old’’ or ‘‘new’’ art.
‘‘I have to reinvent myself sculpture-wise, because I’ve been out of it for so long,’’ he said.
‘‘It is like starting from scratch.’’
Christopher isn’t short of training or experience though.
One of the highlights of his career so far was working in the movie industry on films including Star Wars, Mission Impossible and The Matrix.
‘‘I was doing set-dressing and making props for the movies,’’ he said.
Christopher also got to work with Star Wars creator George Lucas, designin weapons and objects for the movies.
‘‘I loved every minute of it.’’
His latest work is an entry to the 2011 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, which is sponsored by the Wentworth Courier. He won the special commendation prize last year.
‘‘The work I’m doing at the moment is quite expensive to produce,’’ he said.
‘‘It has cost me thousands of dollars already, much more than I anticipated.’’
It also takes time for his sculptures to come to life.
‘‘My entry to the prize has taken me about four to five months so far,’’ he said.
The winner of the 2011 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize will win $10,000.
Entries close this Friday.
For more information visit sculptureprize.woollahra.nsw.gov.au.”
Artshub Article – “Jason Christopher wins sculpture award”
http://www.artshub.com.au/au/news-article/news/visual-arts/jason-christopher-wins-sculpture-award-184424” Jason Christopher wins sculpture awardBy
ArtsHubArtsHub | Saturday, June 18, 2011This year’s David Harold Tribe Sculpture Award has been won by Sydney based sculptor Jason Christopher for his topical piece ‘Free Range’.Free Range depicts the providers of our dietary staples, a cow and chickens, as completely mechanised Robocop-like parodies of the creatures that once dwelt on Old MacDonald’s farm. It’s a bleakly humorous view, in which the bovine’s black eyes plead from behind the computer monitors that have replaced its head. Its metal hooves stamp across a field of Astroturf, supporting skeletal steel legs secured with screws while Terminator-chickens peck at the glass cages of their screen-heads.Relating to the automation of the food industry, as well as the lack of awareness and consciousness we have become accustom to, the piece looks to technology for possible future answers. As Jason states, “Overall the work is derived through my dependencies and guilt at partaking in the use and exploitation of living beings for my own consumption.. . the work was never intended to be serious, it serves only to touch on a number of broad topics in a satirical way.’Jason’s purpose with ‘Free Range’ aligns with the notions of David Tribe, the Sydney philosopher and secularist who has devoted much of his life to the promotion of free thought. The $12,000 prize is awarded to recognise innovative sculptures and to further popularise sculpture as an art form.Sculpture for Jason allows the opportunity to combine a range of different mediums, materials and technologies, which enable him to comment through the processes of production. According to the sculptor, ‘3D object based work also enables me to incorporate sound and video into the works, an area and medium I am keenly interested in utilising.’Jason left the security of a well-paying job to return to university to reignite his sculptural practice undertaking a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) majoring in Sculpture. He has previously won the Special Commendation Award – Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize in 2010 and has exhibited his work at Sculpture by the Sea, West 8 Woolloomooloo, Space Furniture, Louvre Paris and Opera House forecourt just to name a few. ”
Daily Telegraph Article – “David Harold Tribe Sculpture Award”
Winner: Jason Christopher with Free Range. Picture: John Fotiadis. Source: The Daily Telegraph
IN THE farmyard of the future, cows won’t need to be milked and chooks won’t need to be shooed off their newly-laid eggs. Cows and chooks will be redundant. That’s the unsettling vision of Bondi sculptor Jason Christopher, who last week won the $12,000 David Harold Tribe Sculpture Award for Free Range, his mixed media and video construction.
In Free Range, the provision of our daily staples is taken over by creatures of an entirely mechanical nature. They moo and cluck, but only on a play-back device. They have faces, but only on a computer screen. They deliver substances that resemble milk and eggs, but only through a shiny articulated steel tube.
While there is plenty of humour in Free Range, its underlying message is close to Christopher’s heart.
“Outside my (art) practice, my main interest is animals,” Christopher says.
He is the second winner of the David Harold Tribe Sculpture Award at the Sydney College Of The Arts in Rozelle. The College is the University Of Sydney’s visual arts faculty.The prize is endowed by David Tribe, a Sydney philosopher and secularist who has devoted much of his life to the promotion of free thought. He wanted the prize to reward the creation of innovative sculpture and to promote the art of sculpture more widely.Among the other eight finalists whose work is also on view in the exhibition is Rolande Souliere, a member of the Michipicoten First Nation in Canada, who lives and works in Sydney. Souliere’s work, Points Of Origin, is a cluster of metal road signs on poles. But the vibrant patterns on the signs make little sense to the contemporary westerner, reminding us how lost we can be in another culture.
Maria Fernanda Cardoso created a resin sculpture of the genitalia of a micro mini-beast, offering a chance to marvel at the inventiveness of nature. And Stephen Cramb made a life-size ceramic man in the act of falling backwards a reminder of the bodies in free-fall from the World Trade Center, or Michelangelo’s figures descending to Hell in the Sistine Chapel.Merryn Bowden, Kath Fries, Laura McLean, Sylvia Schwenk and Twana Sivan were also finalists in the award and their works are also on display.
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David Harold Tribe Sculpture Award
Sydney College Of The Arts Gallery, Balmain Rd, Rozelle, until Friday,
11am-5pm, sydney.edu.au/sca”
Sydney Morning Herald Article: “Smallest is the best but decadence is declined
October 24, 2010
BLINK and you could very easily miss this year’s winner of the $10,000 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. Indigenous artist Archie Moore’s Humpy Goona, a church made from the pages of a tiny Bible, is just seven centimetres wide, well under the 80-centimetre size limit. Yet it captured the attention of the judges.”It’s filled with ideas and goes to show that an artwork doesn’t have to be huge,” said Museum of Contemporary Art curator Glenn Barkley. He said there had been ”no disagreement” with fellow judges John Kaldor and Monica McMahon. Jason Christopher’s Milk Machine, with a mooing soundtrack, won a special commendation from the judges and a query from the receptionist next door, who thought a cow had wandered in.But they steered clear of Simon Pericich’s Progress in an Age of Decadence (pictured), a Coke bottle filled with urine and $90 cash. Malcolm Turnbull was due to speak at Friday’s opening, which also attracted John Singleton’s ex-wife Julie, Luca Belgiorno-Nettis and restaurateurs Kylie Kwong and Lucio Galleto.”
