In their suggestion of movement and organic growth, Bronwyn Oliver’s sculptures evoke the vitality of living forms. Her works appear to twist and curve, the intricate web of their construction carrying this movement across their surface. Regarded as one of Australia’s most significant sculptors, Oliver’s works can be elusive and contradictory, at once transparent and refined yet asserting their physicality and command of space.

In 1981 Oliver won the New South Wales Travelling Art Scholarship with her paper-based works Volume I, II and III (the final part of this series held in the UNSW Art Collection). The scholarship enabled Oliver to undertake a Master of Art (Sculpture) at the Chelsea School of Art in London from 1982–83. Oliver was in England at the time when artists such as Antony Gormley, Alison Wilding and Richard Deacon (one of Oliver’s tutors) adopted a new approach to materials and imagery, their works known as the new British Sculpture. This was to be a highly formative period in her life, and Oliver spent much of the 1980s in England and France refining and developing her work. Importantly, it reaffirmed her commitment to making object-based sculpture at a time when many artists were turning to practices including video, performance, and installation.

Oliver’s earliest works were primarily constructed from organic materials such as paper, cane and string and resembled living creatures such as shells or anemones. In 1987 she made her first work using copper, beginning an unwavering relationship with the material. After she learned how to weld and braze copper, Oliver was able to realise her sculptural ambitions on a larger scale, creating works that were at once durable and strong, yet retained a lightness and fluidity. She defined the repertoire of forms, notably the spiral, loop, disc, funnel and sphere, which she would use throughout her life. Oliver’s copper wire sculptures harbour a delicate life force, suggestive of ephemeral organic materials, yet retain a structural certainty. Oliver explained:

Oliver’s first major sculptural commission was for the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney in 1999. In 2001 she won UNSW’s first invitation-only competition for a site-specific sculpture to be located in the recently completed International Square. Oliver’s successful proposal spoke of the relationship of her large spherical form to the recently completed John Niland Scientia building and the rectangular geometry of the adjacent Ainsworth and Electrical Engineering buildings.

Globe is one of Oliver’s most successful works, self-contained and in harmonious relationship to its setting. In the form of a sphere, it is constructed from brazed copper wires that resemble the interlocking veins of a leaf and create a spiralling motion across the surface of the work. Its title refers to both the global reach of the University, as well as its beginnings as a technology and science-based institution, seeking to understand the world and our place within it. Since it was installed in September 2002, Globe has become an iconic part of the UNSW campus.

Oliver was born near Inverell in northern New South Wales in 1959. She studied at the Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education (which later became UNSW Art & Design) from 1977 to 1980. In 2006 she received the Dean’s Award for Excellence, UNSW Art & Design. Oliver held regular solo exhibitions and her works were included in important survey shows including the first Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (1993). She was awarded the Moët & Chandon Australian Art Fellowship in 1994, and was a finalist in the inaugural Helen Lempriere National Sculpture Award (2000), the National Sculpture Prize and Exhibition, National Gallery of Australia (2001), and the Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, National Gallery of Victoria (2006). A major survey exhibition of her work was presented by the Tarrawarra Museum of Art, Healesville in 2016. She completed major public commissions and her work is held in all major public collections in Australia and internationally including Europe, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and USA.

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Bronwyn Oliver: strange things by Hannah Fink