Exhibiting:
7 August - 7 September
Opening Event:
Thursday, 7 August 5:30 - 7:30PM
First Floor Galleries
And we ask ourselves; How did we get here?
Toby Twiss
Gravity Batteries
This installation is an attempt to reveal everyday technologies, applying a bricolage of DIY and craft methods, exploring clay's properties in lieu of conventional materials.
The act of breaking apart or reappropriating electronics and installing them in a primal form, such as a clay pot, is at once subversive and revealing, as well as liberating.
The role of pottery, like any vessel, is to contain, protect and offer up substances.
However, these works contain a toxic aspect that is significant in our habitation of earth and world.
Things leak. Crystals grow.
Elements are brought together and concentrated.
Are they contained?
What or who is being protected?
What is being offered up?
Our capitalist approach to technologies commodifies and separates products, creating a lack of understanding of their constituent parts, where they come from and what happens to them when we are finished with them.
About Toby Twiss
Toby Twiss is a sculptor whose current practice draws on traditional studio pottery techniques. His work largely explores themes surrounding the human condition, particularly focusing on relationships and intimacy, and brings together both traditional and contemporary approaches.
Born in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, Twiss trained as an art founder and worked as a furniture designer during the early 1990s before obtaining his MFA in sculpture at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, in 1997. He has worked at Auckland Studio Potters for the past 15 years, coordinating Otago Polytechnic’s Diploma in Ceramic Arts. Presently, he is pursuing a PhD at Auckland University of Technology and creates his work from his home in Hillsborough, Auckland.
His work comprises of commissions, for the private and public arena.
His public work includes a life-size bronze sculpture “Robbie” for Aotea square.