Dominic Kavanagh
The Blooming
24 October – 3 November 2024
Artwork focuses on the sublime nature of decay
New work by award-winning Melbourne artist Dominic Kavanagh will be exhibited at The Lennox, Richmond, from Saturday 26 October.
Titled The Blooming, the work investigates the relationship between the grotesque and the sublime with a series of wall mounted and free-standing installations of bricks, found objects, cement, mirrored perspex, wire and epoxy resin.
Kavanagh is known for his exploration into the appropriation of ruins as sculpture in an endeavour to identify and tease out the sublime nature of decay.
He won the Lennox Award 2023 for his work Twilight Congregation 2023, which was exhibited at NotFair2023.
Kavanagh’s oeuvre is underpinned by the topic of ruins. The urban ruins he encounters in his local surrounds play a formative role in his creative process, from sourcing materials through to the character and design of an artwork.
Kavanagh says for him ruins represent an enduring phenomenon of constructed and natural landscapes.
“They provide me with an endless source of inspiration for sculptural ideas, together with materials.
“Throughout my practice I have tried to emulate the process or condition of ruination in my sculptural installations, assemblages and constructions. Each artwork is an attempt at conveying the sublime transformation that occurs in a ruin as it gradually falls apart (whether architectural, machine or organic). More specifically I am interested in the variety of ways processes of decay and putrefaction alter the shape, colour and texture of an object or structure.’’
“We see this notion explored in The Blooming, particularly in the wall mounted works that feature Kavanagh’s experimentations with mirrored perspex panels.
“The panels, coated in glistening epoxy resin, acquire a skin-like quality as they are further inflicted with a variety of abrasions, punctures, eruptions and inflammations. Here, pathogenic blossoms of concrete and wire bulge and haemorrhage across the surface while inadvertently revealing cavities of interior skeletal structures and colours,” said Kavanagh.
Kavanagh completed a BFA at Newcastle University and was awarded 1st class Honours in 2004. He later went on to complete a Master of Fine Art at Monash University in 2011. In 2012 he was awarded the aRtECYCLE Award and has since been shortlisted in numerous national art prizes including The Hutchins Australian Contemporary Art Prize, The Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award, The Incinerator Art Award, and The Substation Contemporary Art Prize. Kavanagh has held solo exhibitions at Anna Pappas, Rubicon, Incinerator Art Gallery, Bus, and Blindside Gallery, and appeared in curated exhibitions at Strange Neighbour, Bundoora Homestead and The Substation.
The Lennox Prize is an ongoing prize for talent selected from the NotFair participants.
The Lennox in Richmond is one of Melbourne’s old iconic buildings, now a space for art. Sponsor of the Lennox Prize, Helen Bogdan, a longtime supporter and Board Member of NotFair who selects the prizewinners, says that, "Over these years I have seen the growth of NotFair as an important feature in the art world. We have uncovered many artists and given them the opportunity for public display."
