12 February - 8 march

front gallery

Steven Bellesguardo
Bronze still gets you on the podium

Statement 

Bronze still gets you on the podiumis an exhibition of new and recent work, exploring ideas of persistence and failure in our success-oriented society, where output is valued over critical thinking, productivity over craftsmanship.

This show responds to an experimental performance that adapts the myth of Sisyphus as a generative force for making work – commandeering the recurrent nature of action, failure, and repeat. Re-establishing the intersection between labourer and artist, relocates the maker as an embodiment of athleticism and duress. Compounded are mud brick methodologies, basketball culture, and construction materiality – culminating in a genesis of absurd processes and outcomes.

Set to an anxiety-inducing beep test, in Master of none the satirical maker mixes mud, casts bricks, and shoots free throws as external pressures force a spiralling out of control. The work asks us to rethink capitalist systems of value and picture ourselves in a society that moves slowly, creates room for experimentation, and champions quality over quantity.

Artist Bio

Steven Bellosguardo is an emerging artist working between Naarm/Melbourne and Tarntanya/Adelaide. Embracing labour-intensive techniques, Bellosguardo creates hybrid biomorphic forms and constructed assemblages that explore themes such as labour, counterculture, and the Anthropocene. By intertwining historical narratives with personal reflections, Bellosguardo’s work examines the complexity of shared subjective experiences. Central to his studio practice is an awareness of the body, failure and time. With a background in construction and stonemasonry, Bellosguardo has adopted various processes and techniques, including forming, sculpting, casting and assemblage, with materials as diverse as metal, plaster, paint, bronze, aluminium, and silicone.