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KaleidopressBorn in New Zealand.
Lives and works in Sydney, Australia.
Stevie Fieldsend’s work seeks to detail an emotional state – more a feeling or sensation/bodily memory of a past event. Fieldsend is interested in how to convey emotional realities about longing, grief and death. Central to these perceptions are the notions of the lived body and transference.
In working with materials that embody the process of transmutation such as molten glass, steel and charred wood, a type of performance takes place close to the furnace, and inside her body.
A ritual that leaves more than a trace, it leaves a place of where there is a possibility of transformation. In previous bodies of work, such as solve et coagula, Fieldsend slumps thick-shaped biomorphic molten glass over and inside a series of dark, truncated vertical forms. The hot glass itself assumes and picks up an imprint memory of the wood grain, is separated, and then when cooled is laid back down over the standing forms.
More recently in her mira mira series of works, Fieldsend has continued to work with wood and glass whilst incorporating textiles into her practice. These signature visceral sculptures of viscous molten glass, torched wood and tinted tightly pleated textiles are steeped in the life force, the sense of self and the psyche.Her works conjure with the mental maneuvers, at once conscious and unconscious into the recesses of the psyche, the mind morphing along the hallways of the mind – like a latter day Alice in Wonderland – to a thousand windows of fancy.
Stevie Fieldsend studied glass at Sydney College of the Arts and The Jam Factory Craft and Design Centre in Adelaide and from these two influences has worked, in both design and production as well as installation/sculpture. In recent years Fieldsend completed both a Master of Fine Art and a Master of Studio Arts at Sydney College of the Arts.
She has participated in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally and has been the recipient of numerous art prizes including: the Scenic World Staff Choice Award for Sculpture at Scenic World (2015), the Rookwood Necropolis Sculpture Award (2013) and Sculpture in the Vineyards (2012). Fieldsend has also been a finalist of numerous prestigious prizes including: the NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging), presented by Artspace and Arts NSW (2015), the Redlands Konika Minolta Art Prize (2015), the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award (2014), the Blake Prize (2013), and the Willoughby Sculpture Prize(2013).
Fieldsend’s work has been presented at Hong Kong Art Central, Sydney Contemporary, Melbourne Art Fair and included in curated group exhibitions at Moreton Bay Regional Gallery, Caboolture Regional Art Gallery, Cessnock Regional Art Gallery, Campbelltown Regional Art Gallery and Blacktown Arts Centre.
In 2016 Stevie Fieldsend was a finalist in the Lorne Sculpture Biennale and presented her third solo presentation of works at Artereal Gallery in Sydney. Her work can be found in numerous public and private collections, including the Artbank collection.
