BALINT, John

I have been making ceramic semi-abstract figurative sculpture for over 25 years. I studied ceramics technology and sculpture at Meadowbank TAFE, Brookvale TAFE and Hornsby TAFE.

I have exhibited my work with various galleries including a number of shows with the Sculptors Society at Darling Park and Australia Square. Two major ceramic sculptures, each 1.4 metres high, were purchased by Arts North in 2001 for the permanent TAFE art collection. The creation series was exhibited at the Helen Stephens gallery in Waverley in 2008. My sculpture, Captive1, was selected to be exhibited as part of the Australian Museum’s “Egyptian Treasures” exhibition in 2009.

Artist’s Statement

The human figure has been central to much of my sculpture, which has generally taken abstract figurative forms. My work is inspired by the natural landscape of the Sydney bushland with its rugged sandstone shapes contrasting with the smooth sensuous feminine like forms of the angophora trees. My work is further influenced by the cycle of life and decay, exemplified by broken ancient Greek and Asian sculpture. These ancient sculptures are trapped at a stage in their life cycle, as if frozen in the decaying process, halting their return to the land from where the materials came for their original creation.

To contact this sculptor, please email Eva Chant, Sculptors Society Secretary, at sculpt1@bigpond.net.au