When Broadsheet visits Rosie Deacon’s studio, she’s peeling open a tub of bouncing putty – one of 90 donated to her by a local toy shop. “It’s all about the material with me as to where the work might go,” she says, tearing sections of fluro putty and moulding it into a parrot shape on her workbench. “Normally I get straight into making, and one work informs the next, but with this one I was stalling and overthinking it. Then this bouncing putty landed in my hands.”
Deacon is talking about her latest exhibition, Spring Collection, at New South Wales regional art gallery Ngununggula – which showcases her work alongside iconic Australian painter Ken Done.
“I wanted to do something quite big and ridiculous and over the top,” she says. “He’s been one of my idols – and such an inspiration – since forever … I did feel a lot of pressure.”
For Spring Collection, Deacon made an 80-metre beaded necklace and a huge pair of parrot earrings. “When I first thought of Ken Done’s work and where that takes me – to the ’80s and ’90s growing up – it was about gift-making, gifting friendship bracelets, and this material reminds me of that.
“I grew up with craft circles and sewing classes, and I love that warm environment where you’re making things together and for people. I guess I’m doing that but on a larger scale.”
The 37-year-old artist grew up in regional New South Wales, in Bathurst and Wagga Wagga. When she was younger, she dreamt of becoming a toy designer or a set designer for film, theatre and TV. “I was making things from lots of different materials – toilet-paper rolls, Milo tins, sticks. Even after I finished uni I thought, ‘I can’t be an artist’, but I’ve gradually been invited to exhibitions and it’s grown from there.”
She’s being modest of course. After moving to Sydney in 2005, Deacon graduated from UNSW Art & Design (formerly known as the College of Fine Arts) with first class honours. She received the Gallery Barry Keldoulis grant for emerging artists. Her playful and evocative artworks – ranging from cat sculptures to rainbow koala totems – have been exhibited at places such as Sydney Contemporary, Mona Foma, Underbelly Arts, the MCA and the Powerhouse Museum. But for the quite shy Deacon, the nature of her job is still something she thinks about, often.
“Kids go wild for it, but I don’t make the work for children. I like seeing adults drop their shoulders and let go a little bit, go to a place that’s fun and a bit silly. I feel like there’s not that much opportunity for adults to have that sense of play and escape,” she says.
“I guess my love of Australia’s flora and fauna started at a very early age, but I have complicated feelings about it and maybe that’s why my sculptures are a little bit strange and uncomfortable and somewhat grotesque and cute.”
Towering behind us is a two-metre-tall koala sculpture, made from steel wiring and fabric that’s painted deep indigo and grey-ish purple, with patches of red, pink, orange and neon green. Her bunker-like studio, underneath the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, is packed with completed works and everyday objects – foam pool noodles, painted sponges, coloured tissue paper.
“I’m always exploring through the process of making,” she says. “I grew up seeing souvenirs on shelves in Sydney, and how we put out products to the world to represent Australia, how it’s shifting and changing, is very interesting to me.”
Spring Collection is showing at Ngununggula, the Southern Highlands, until October 9.
Read more in our Studio Visit series.
