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Andrew Christie
Public Figures Series #1, Kandos Edition | 2017
Public Figures Series #1, Kandos Edition. @
In a Kandos shopfront window, passersby may catch a glance of some curious novelties. Small hand-painted models of Kandos locals are shown as marketable objects, waiting to be sold as souvenirs or collectables to visitors and locals alike. These public figures are representative of the Kandos community as the town redefines itself following the closure of the historic cement works. Whether it’s Brent Barlow, descendant of a second-fleeter Mudgee newspaper family, local educators and artists Kat and Darryl Brown, or innovative farmer Stuart Andrews of Natural Sequence Farming, you can support this small town by taking a unique part of Kandos home with you.
bio:
Andrew Christie is a Sydney-based multidisciplinary artist and curator with specialties in sculptural, institutional and community-based work. In 2015 Christie was awarded the Macarthur and Emerging Artist Awards in Fisher’s Ghost Art Prize and has recently completed his Babylon Project. This harnessed dust from the premises of participating Sydney libraries as a creative medium. For Cementa17 Christie has been producing ‘Public Figures’, souvenir figurines modelled from ordinary Kandos citizens. These will be advertised and marketed during the festival. Christie is currently completing his Masters of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts (USYD.
statement:
Throughout my work there is an emphasis on the imperative of art to better incorporate the failures, absurdities and conflicts of the everyday. My engagements range from molding library dust to nonsensically manipulating sporting equipment and internet emoticons. These seemingly trivial, irreverent and/or meaningless phenomena are valued for their artistic potential to empower and express a sense of universality while combating conventional ideals of ambition, intellect and success. With strong interests in publicly engaged practice, my work functions as carefully considered disruptions and facilitates a sense of humour towards our tragically flawed existence.
