GLEN HAYWARD
SYDNEY CONTEMPORARY | CARRIAGEWORKS
PAULNACHE BOOTH D01
7-10 SEPTEMBER 2017
https://sydneycontemporary.com.au

Glen Hayward (b.1974) makes hand-carved, hand-painted wooden sculptures that faithfully reproduce the appearance of commonplace objects, from the mundane: light switches, security cameras, nails; through to the ambitious replication of Neo’s office from the movie The Matrix (1999).

Hayward’s artworks pose the problem of how these trompe de l’oeil objects now operate in or on the world they were originally selected from. Hayward is riffing on the readymade, undermining its accessibility with painstaking labour: “I find all the world of things endlessly fascinating and potentially meaningful [...] To make a ready-made incites a value for the thing depicted, it permits a physical understanding of the world through making and parallels this through viewing.”

For Sydney Contemporary Art Fair 2017, Hayward presents Notes on Dendrochronology (Toyota 1980s): the inside cab of an upside down Toyota Corolla, like the one he used to play in, abandoned in a paddock in Whanganui. While the outside shape is just the idea of a car, the interior is carved with the precise, world-stopping detail from an adrenaline-filled driver’s eyes, moments after rolling the car. The viewer is compelled to get down on the ground to look inside – an adult positioned like a child, peering into a space; peering back into a magical space.

View images of works presented at the upcoming Sydney Contemporary Art Fair:
http://www.paulnache.com/glen-hayward

Download PDF catalogue [766kb]

Photography by Jacquie Manning and @dk.gordon