Paradise Surfers / Props in A Game of Make Believe

By Andrew Frost

Official Website

If chutzpah were a drug, then artist Tom Mason would be as high as kite. As a Northern Beaches surfer, Mason was part of a culture where ad-hoc and make-do counted for everything away from the waves. Mason and friends built a beach-side home-away-from-home, a cubby under the bush that included, tables and chairs, couches and all the accoutrements of suburban living transported to the beach. Although comfortable the camp was periodically removed by Warringah Council. In an act of inventive reuse, Mason attempts to remake the camp using onsite natural materials such as clay, grass and sand, materials that can be readily recreated should the Council killjoys return. Part ethnography, part autobiography, Mason is considered a kid genius of sculpture and ceramic arts, investing the old world of art with the urgency of a subculture.

Also at Gaff is Props In A Game of Make Believe, curated by Katrina Stamatopoulos. Bringing together into the mix the work of other recent COFA graduates including Patrick Cremin, Sarah Kukathas and Lisa Sammut, as well as pieces by Koji Makino, Rene Norwie and Renate Rienmueller, the exhibition bills itself as an “exploration into the hazy borders that separate real and imagined ways of perceiving” which, in practical terms, translates as installation ‘environment’ where works explore the representation of the real via mixed media, brainy yes, but also poetic.

Gaffa Gallery, Sydney
Pic: Tom Mason, Sand Dune Culture, 2014.