This week holds the Gold Coast’s 10th annual Swell Sculpture Festival, with an astounding fifty displays from Australian and abroad artists being exhibited on Currumbin Beach. During the 10 day exhibition, spectators can be amongst the works, enjoy twilight walks, and join in master classes and children’s workshops. With live entertainment and music, as well as talks from the artists themselves, Swell has fast become a famous and fun day for Gold Coast locals and tourists. This year took no exception.
Being quoted as “the best festival we’ve had yet”, this year’s Swell has become home to box fish, wired insects, hollow swimmers, and buried whales. The inventive uses of materials that differ between sculptures complement their flow of ideas and concepts. Some sculptures however, hold clear and impacting purposes; such as Elysium Greene’s ‘Can’t Sea Through This’ – plastic ‘K’ and ‘G’ initials filled with rubbish collected from the beach in one week. “The council cleans the beach every night, and still there remains so much left”, Greene told ABC Coast FM.
Not only were sculptures used to complement their surroundings of park and sand, but interactive technology saw a part of this year’s festival. Shelly Kelly and Cameron Spiller’s ‘Dormant’ exhibited a white box, with a moving projected light on its inside, making an inventive idea of art and kids’ entertainment.
Artists hope for buyers of their artwork at the end of the festival, of which many Swell exhibitions can still be seen around the Gold Coast. Swell Sculpture Festival continues till the 23rd of September.
Kemii 