Justification Indicator, 2014, Cliff Burtt
Welded and forged steel, brass, 73cm x 58cm x 30cm
Provenance: Artist's studio.
Cliff Burtt has been exhibiting since 1985 and has worked extensively with councils and corporations for both public and private art commissions. Burtt’s work has been on display in the National Gallery of Victoria and is collected across Australia, Europe and the USA.
Artist's Statement
“My work over a number of years has centered on and added to two bodies of work: sculptures that incorporate landscape and architectural elements; and pieces that relate to scientific models and instruments. In both bodies of work the notion of time is fundamental: our attempts to measure and master it, and the effects wrought by time on our concepts and structures and the societies that shape us. suggests the action of time, of materials or objects that have undergone decay.
The paradigm which has shaped the modern world, that of natural philosophy - science- and its comcomitant engineering technologies, begins with the investigation and measurement of phenomena. The works presented here are especially concerned with the modelling of physical systems and optical equipment. A number of these pieces effectively reverse- engineer the aesthetics of the instruments used, to draw out the poetics of the means employed by our forebears, an alchemy of physics” (1).