Under a White Sky

In her current exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Nike Savvas has turned the gallery into a shimmering, minimalist arcadian landscape. The exhibition consists of one hundred clear glass free-standing bird sculptures clustered on the floor as well as three stamped foil and acrylic paintings. Each glass stork is hand-blown and unique. The effect of the flock is one of order within chaos. The paintings depict waterfalls and an orchard of Cherry Blossom trees, their metallic surfaces shimmering with reflected light.

Savvas has always used the cold materials of minimalism in a non-minimal way. Her paintings, sculptures and installations have a strong decorative element and visual appeal, often employing repetition or using large numbers of similar objects or forms. Savvas' delicate birds, entitled Zero to Infinity, inhabit a space between representation, reduction, translucency of form, and presence. This work rests on the cusp between the visible and the invisible, implying the storks role to be that of a 'trace', a transparency, linking form—the tangible, with the intangible. They stand in a huddle, existing in a momentary frozen state between representation and, through their fragile fluidity—abstraction. The open and transparent nature of the material allows light, and our gaze, to simultaneously reflect and pass through their slight forms, suggestive of transcendence towards a more open and malleable form of interpretation that encourages readings from many different and varied contexts.

Nike Savvas was included in this year's prestigious East International in Norwich, UK. In a career that spans over a decade, Savvas has been included in numerous group exhibitions both in Australia and overseas. In 1996, she was awarded the Anne and Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship which enabled her to study at Goldsmiths College at the University of London. Savvas' work is held by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Auckland Art Gallery and the Griffith University Collection as well as numerous private and corporate collections in Australia and internationally.