Gippsland artist Rachel Steinmann has launched new exhibition "Of Angst and Awe" at Gippsland Art Gallery.
Provocative and deeply evocative, Steinmann's new sculptures feature materials as diverse as carved cypress, found objects, welded steel, intimate ceramic forms, river rocks and chains.
The large scale, textures and dynamic quality of these assembled artworks encourage viewers to look closely, and often result in a strong emotional response, from a blow to the stomach to a sense of sheer delight and wonder.
Steinmann has developed these sculptures along philosophical, environmental and social themes.
Having alternated between Melbourne and Gippsland, now calling Maffra home, she feels a vital connection to the local bushland. The creeks and rivers bring her calmness, while the ancient rocks and landforms give her a sense of perspective and help to her reflect on the passage of time.
Living on Gunaikurnai land, Steinmann is also aware of the destructive and ongoing impact and hurts of colonialism.
"It has become very important to my mental health to balance the challenge and anxiety of present-day existence with sources of calm, resilience and peace", Steinmann says. "But I don't want to drop the ball on confronting issues that create conflict and disease, or threaten ours and the planet's life".
Gippsland Art Gallery curator Louisa Waters said Steinmann's work brings tensions of ecology and tensions of the body into fascinating and raw entanglements.
"Her sculptures are somewhat Louise Bourgeois meets Andy Goldsworthy, while maintaining their own voice," she said. "In the presence of each piece, you are certainly held in a space of angst and awe,
just as the title of the exhibition suggests".
As part of the gallery's winter season of exhibitions, Steinmann's exhibition will run until Sunday, August 25 at the same time as her undergraduate lecturer Geoffrey Bartlett, also a sculptor.