MICROCOSM by Goldberg Aberline Studio
17 May - 7 June 2019
Opening event 6pm Friday 17 May
An 'explosion of happiness' is set to be unveiled at BVRG this May! To celebrate the launch of the BVRG redevelopment philanthropy campaign join us for this inflatable event, brought to you by Goldberg Aberline Studios (GAS)
Maurice Goldberg was an architect and a corporate leader. Matthew Aberline was a feature film and live performance designer. Together they created GAS to create immersive art experiences for art lovers around the world.
Their work is based on a constant quest to develop, research and create new ideas. Their shared background in engineering, (Maurice at an architectural scale, and Matthew at an intimate human scale) allows them to create very unique art experiences.
Their work is placed where the hand crafted object meets digital processes, and accordingly it has been increasingly important that their work maintains "the touch of the artist's hand".
“We want to create in our viewers feelings of unexpected delight and joy".
“Microcosm”, an inflatable art installation by artists Matthew Aberline and Maurice Goldberg from the Goldberg Aberline Studio (GAS).
Microcosm was originally featured in Sydney’s famous “Sculpture by the Sea” where it was installed on one of the Surf Life Saver Buildings at Tamarama Beach. We are proud to present it at the Bega Valley Regional Gallery.
The work is actually a portrait of a tiny coral outcrop the artists saw off the coast of Indonesia:
“During the 80s, someone had the terrible idea of using dynamite to easily catch the fish out of this beautiful tropical area. The current drifted us through hundreds of metres of dead coral, the broken shards all laying dead and white on the ocean floor. Then in the middle of all this desolation, we saw this tiny outcrop of regenerated coral, so vibrant and alive and moving with the current. Nestled inside it were two clown fish looking as proud as they could be about their new home. It was one of the best things we’ve ever seen, because it showed us that recovery was possible…”
“We wanted to create something very positive and exciting about our world. Microcosm means “tiny world”, so on one level it is about that tiny little coral outcrop regenerating, but on another level it is about our own little worlds and how our actions have impact on it.”
GAS's work is often influenced by the natural world, and their fascination for what they believe is an endlessly scaleable natural aesthetic.
“Imagine you’re standing at the ocean’s edge and you see how the waves have made ripples out of the sand, and then you look at the sky and see that the wind has made the same ripples out the clouds but at a huge scale. Microcosm borrows that same natural visual language and so the forms that could be synapses, or galaxies… “
Their process always begins with scribbling, the two artists drafting up ideas in a very fast and spontaneous way. Then they start developing their fabric designs, and use a combination of paint of paper, iPad apps, and photoshop to create designs that are highly digital but still feel very warm and organic.
“It’s really important to us that our fabric designs feel like a human made them. For Microcosm we wanted it from a distance to read like a coral reef, but upon closer inspection for the viewer to realise it’s a crazy splash of scribbles and paint.”
The works are all manufactured by the artists and their team. Goldberg was an architect, and Aberline a designer thats specialised in textiles, so together they are able to create architecturally sized fabric objects. The final part of the development of the works often sees the artists standing on tall ladders adding and adjusting the work in its last stages of sculpting.
“We have a lot of specialised manufacturing equipment that means we can create works that are incredibly light, but incredibly strong. A lot of our fabrics are actually the same as those used in super yachts."
The Goldberg Aberline Studio have shown their work at VIVID, the Museum of Contemporary Art, have collaborated with Jimmy Choo and First Nations artists Sharon and Kaye Warrie, and have been invited to create an installation at Wall St New York for this year’s World Pride.