“Spherical Approximations”
Melanie Irwin
10 July → 15 Aug 2015

Spherical Approximations expands on Melanie Irwin’s Geodesic Envelopes project (2013–), which examines the human construction and habitation of geometric space. Performers use salvaged objects to build makeshift spherical structures inside the textile membranes that envelop their bodies. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes are reconfigured here as stretchy patchwork bubbles; shifting, expanding biomorphs that ingest the objects from their surroundings. The work also makes reference to Archimedes’ approximation of ? (pi), where straight-sided polygons provide rigid parameters for the indefinite dimensions of the circle.

Melanie Irwin is based in Melbourne. Her practice incorporates a performative approach to sculpture that celebrates the elasticity and resilience of the human body. Irwin completed a Master of Fine Art at the VCA in 2013. Recent solo exhibitions include: Geodesic Envelopes, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2014); Distension (Single File), ACAF Gallery, Melbourne (2013); and Archimedes’s Approximation of ?, Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney (2011). Group exhibitions include: Reunion, Lehrter Siebzehn, Berlin (2014); A Half Scene, XLY Museum of Modern Art, Chengdu (2013); Regimes of Value, Margaret Lawrence Gallery and The Substation, Melbourne (2013); and Far Point …, Sydney Non Objective, Sydney (2010).