Yarra Valley Arts / Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition & Awards 2024
October 27 - December 8
My Artwork “Aba Tells Me a Story”
has been the winner of the
Yarra Valley Arts Sculpture Award
at the Yarra Valley Arts / Yering Station
Sculpture Exhibition & Awards 2024
Yering Station
38 Melba Highway Yarra Glen,
Victoria 3775
Artwork was selected from among the
entries by sculptor and curator
Savaad Felich
TarraWarra Museum of Art Curator
Anthony Fitzpatrick, and sculptor
and Gallery Founder Julie Collins.
A huge thank you to the president of
Yarra Valley Arts,Helen Wood,
and the curatorial advisor
Savaad Felich, for awarding my work
with this prize.
Respected for its consistency
and longevity,the exhibition
showcases a cross section
of new Australian sculpture from both
emerging and established artists.
Having grown steadily since 2001,
it is now the longest running annual
sculpture exhibition in Victoria
and an iconic event on the
Australian arts calendar.
Yarra Valley Arts / Yering Station
“Aba Tells Me a Story”
H440mm x W550mm x D350mm
Stoneware clay, porcelain slip,
layered ceramic glaze materials,
steel wire, textured fabric,
screen-print stain application,
dry glaze, Multiple firings.
My Aba’s letters, telling me stories,
offering comfort. Handwritten words
on a blank paper, familiar and distinctive,
following me along through my life.
As a warm sunny Israeli summer,
painterly and illustrated,
they are a part of me.
As I read them, holding on to the
slightly creased paper, I notice,
the handwritten familiar line,
used to be curvy and confident,
are no longer the same.
They are now, slightly shaken
embodying a transformation, a reflection of age.
Caught unaware, I am clenching
my hands to the paper as if
it is the only single physical thing
left holding to.
As our bodies age gradually,
I realise, so could our writing,
becoming frail or shaken.
However, in turn, the handwriting
like our soul, may grow richer and telling.
My work is about connection,
connection to place, connection to self
and connection to others.
Describing a childhood journey
to a place of longing,
this piece of writing, as others alike,
represents a single moment in time.
A thread where one could find the
essence of connection.
Where the past weaves
into the present to envisage the future.
This work conveys a fusion of many
disparate elements, clay to steel,
nature to man-made, past to present,
frozen moment to eternity.
My father’s written words, inscribed into
the permanence of ceramics emulates
my desire to capture and embrace.
To keep the perishable timeless.
