July Featured Artist: Carly Scoufos

Image: Carly Scoufos. Photo: Samuel Scoufos.

This month's Featured Artist is Queensland based Carly Scoufos. Carly's work has associations with traditional textile processes such as needlework, lace making and knitting, however in Carly's case the 'fibre' or 'thread' used is fencing wire, which she interweaves to create structure and define space. She describes her work as "bridging elements of the mechanistic and industrial to the organic and natural patterns of growth and decay".

Here Carly talks to NAVA about her practice and what she's working on at the moment. 

NAVA: Tell us about your art practice?

Carly Scoufos: My practice centres around the re-interpretation of natural and fluid phenomena and the organic patterns of growth and decay. Much of my work is sculptural although I prefer to take a multi-disciplinary approach to my art practice, incorporating sculpture, installation, drawing and video. 

NAVA: What draws you to make those connections between industrial elements and organic structures?

CS: I am interested in binary oppositions and developing a juxtaposition between the material used and the overall imagery the artwork presents to the viewer. I think the key element that connects the two within my practice is the process. 

NAVA: What do you enjoy about exploring these connections through sculpture and installation?

CS: I find sculpture a very accessible medium. We live and experience everything in three dimensions so it seems a very natural way to consider art making; utilising and activating space and form. I also find installation the natural progression from sculpture; where space is still the key concern, but moving beyond this to also engage on multiple perceptive levels eg. touch, sense, smell etc. 

NAVA: Do you have a favourite work or a work you particularly enjoyed creating?

CS: I would have to say my first suspended woven wire work Unstable Surface Tension is still one of my favourites. Mostly because it was the very first time that I experienced a completed artwork to turn out exactly as I had initially envisioned it in my mind before making it. 

NAVA: What are you working on at the moment?

CS: For the next few months I am weaving and sculpting approximately 250kgs of bronze wire for an artwork in the Neo-Natal Courtyard at the new Gold Coast University Hospital. The sculpture will suspend the four stories of the space and be viewable from each level. This will be my largest woven work to date and I'm really excited about the outcome and can't wait to see it installed.

NAVA: Where can we see your work?

CS: I currently have a work touring in the 1st Tamworth Textile Triennial. The exhibition is currently showing at the Manning Regional Art Gallery and then onto the Albury Art Gallery. 

www.tamworthregionalgallery.com.au

You can also see more of my work on my website: www.carlyscoufos.com

Carly's NAVA Artist Gallery page

www.visualarts.net.au/gallery/carlyscoufos

Interested in being the next Featured Artist? 

Just create an artist gallery on the NAVA website and email a link to kim@visualarts.net.au. All requests are reviewed by NAVA staff on a monthly basis