about
Artist Statement
Poised in harmonic tension, Senden Blackwood’s elegant stone sculptures are inspired by the pure underlying forms of nature. These works are deceptive in their apparent simplicity, belying the personally demanding work processes involved in their creation. Senden’s abstractions are the result of a physical and conceptual process of sophisticated reduction and refinement, arriving at works that resonate with the fundamental essence of matter and describe its profound beauty. Senden seeks to share his vision of balance in movement through the shaping of interwoven planes and lines. The solemnity and stillness of the richly worked stone invites quiet contemplation, encouraging us towards a meditative experience of the work, where, for a time, the world drifts away.
About
Since childhood I've been fascinated with tools. I was allowed free reign in my dad's shed, where I learned how to pull things apart and occasionally put them back together, sometimes with all the bits in the right places, most times not. Then later in my mum's pokey, cluttered jewellery studio, I learned the beginnings of how to make an imagined thing real. I learned early that things don't always pan out the way they were intended, and that tools can work just as well at injuring oneself as they can at doing whatever they were actually intended for. I now have a healthy respect for the danger that tools can deliver, but also, and more importantly, respect for their efficiency. In the game of carving hard stone, efficiency becomes critical, even more so as the pieces get larger in scale.
I'm mostly self-taught and have therefore learned more from my mistakes than from anything else. I see mistakes as a blessing. They’re a guide and a teacher. By willingly embracing my mistakes, I also embrace my creativity. A willingness to accept and learn from them humbles me and in contrast, deepens my joy of things going right.
I love process; setting in motion a series of sequential actions that eventually bring an imagined form from unreal to real. To be an observer of this creativity-in-process is profoundly satisfying to me. I've always worked on my own and get great satisfaction from knowing that I designed and made every part of a sculpture. To me, the making is as important as the designing.
Over the years I've learned to trust my subconscious, which loves a challenge, and most of my problem solving and designing seems to occur there. I also trust the inherent body knowledge gained from years of repetitive physical movements. Sometimes I know that I need to just let my body do the work. The mind is good for thinking, the body is good for doing.
For two decades I've been dreaming about and working towards carving large monumental-scale stone sculptures, and I feel like I've only just begun on that journey. I'd far prefer to try to make something ridiculous and impossible seeming, than just rehash similar works over and over again.
I feel fortunate and grateful to be able to do this for a living, to be supported by a society and country where we can chase our dreams, however left-field they may be.
Here’s a video of the making of ‘susurrus’, which started as a 23 tonne block of hard black granite, sourced from near Eugowra in New South Wales. It will be shown at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi in 2020.
Here is a slide-show of the making of 'duo'. I learned a great deal while making it, and used what I learned to tackle subsequent large projects.
