Will Maguire - Greeting Stones

Artist: Will Maguire

Artwork Name: Greeting Stones

Medium: Large scale stone and steel sculpture

Date coming: We are currently seeking funding to deliver this ambitious artwork

Artwork statement

Greeting Stones speaks to the liveness of matter and the interconnectedness of all life.

The field of massive stones are held gently aloft defying their huge mass to form a communal gathering. Their gestural forms connect them materially while being of a scale to also connect on a human level. The artwork aims to capture the life of a stone with the qualities it brings, weight, grit, silence and patience.

From the artist: "The underlying philosophy moving this work is a need to ground my work in respect for materials in themselves. To make work which grapples with tensions of vast human natural exploitation and control while being a person deeply embedded in such system of existence. To journey through a process of learning and being with the natural world in a process of find synthesis.  – Will Maguire."

Artist Biography

Hunter Valley based artist Will Maguire holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy with distinction and a trade in both blacksmithing and fabrication. With over 10 years of independent practice, he combines extensive experience in making and design with critical and interrogative thinking bringing fresh eyes to traditional mediums. Maguire’s works span the practical and the sculptural with an eye for form, shadow, weight and the social conditions in which an object emerges.

Maguire has exhibited widely in Australia, throughout the eastern states and NSW regional Galleries; and internationally in UK, USA and Belgium. He has completed residencies at the ANU sculpture school (AUS) and the Penland School of Crafts (USA). His work has been acquired by The University of Newcastle and forms part of the public collections of local and state authorities in ACT, Newcastle (NSW), Wagga Wagga (NSW), Singleton (NSW), Cessnock (NSW) and Langemark-Poelkapelle (Belgium).

Recently his work is featured with a dedicated chapter in the Metal design international 2022 a hard cover book published by German publishing house Hephaistos; and in May 2022, Maguire will be leading an energetic team forging of a 6m long sculptural bench during the Waterside Metal art festival in Footscray, Melbourne.

Acknowledgement

Assisted by the Australian Government through Australia Council on the Arts (now Creative Australia), its arts funding and advisory body and by the NSW Government through Create NSW.