The Sculpture Years – Robert Maddox-Harle

After many, many years of creating sculptures it was with a heavy heart that I laid down my sculpture tools permanently. Serious spinal health issues prevented me from carving and polishing, mainly stone and wood, even wedging and shaping soft clay for ceramic works became too painful.

As an aside I was mainly known as Rob Harle during these fifty years of both writing and making sculpture but changed my literary/artistic name to Robert Maddox-Harle a few years ago to honour both my matrilineal (Harle) and matrilineal (Maddox) ancestral roots.

I made my first ‘sculpture’ when is was about five years old, a wooden construction with hundreds of coloured wires (donated by the local telephone technician) stretched across inside. I called it Communication Device, it was uncannily similar to Naum Gabo’s work, which I of course had never seen. Around fifteen years of age I started ‘consciously’ making geometric figurative pieces from polyurethane for possible later casting.

After leaving school I did a trade, and at the same time produced my first ‘official’ sculptures for exhibition at the Avalon Arts Factory (1973).

Motion steel & car pistons (1973) 60cm high

Disenchanted with city life my wife and I left Sydney and moved to a remote farm house in the Australian bush to pursue a reclusive, creative quite life. This gave me the freedom to develop my sculptural vision and skills, works ranged from small pedestal pieces to large outdoor pieces in ceramic and wood, but mainly in stone. I would often seek out professional artists and work for them, for no pay, to learn the ‘tricks of the trade’, for  example I built kilns for my ceramic mentor Kevin Flanagan in return for guidance in using oxides, clay bodies and firing techniques.

My sculptor mentors were Constantin Brancusi and Henry Moore, after Rodin these two were highly influential in breaking the artifice of the French salon’s insipid style of sculpture. Moore was far more of a Surrealist and radical sculptor than many realise.

My preferred method of working was direct carving both wood and stone, our farm house/studio was close to a number of sandstone quarries which supply stone to the industry, this gave me access to many varieties of beautiful sandstone – two examples are Sound of Silence  and  Moon Goddess. I believe sandstone is  Australia’s stone, the colours, intensity and texture are uniquely Australian, whereas marble is the stone of Europe, a softer smoother stone with gentle colour.

Sound of Silence sandstone (1986) 1.5m high

Moon Goddess sandstone (1987) 2.4m high

I had not long finished  Moon Goddess, when my maquette of

Locking Piece 3 was selected as the successful entry for a large commission at Eucha/Moama. This sculpture is almost four meters high in blue/grey Wombeyan marble, it was designed to sit in a landscaped pond with water cascading down both sides. The finished work, in situ, is shown below together with a photograph of me carving the monster from the scaffolding. This piece took a year’s consistent, very hard work to complete, and on top of that I had to make some of my own special tools with my blacksmith’s forge to create this and many other of my sculptures.

Locking Piece 3 marble (1988) 3.7m high

I consider the Hawkesbury River valley to be my spiritual home, I spent a great deal of time fishing, camping and hiking in this area when I was young, - here the sandstone, river and Australian bush exist in perfect harmony. This influence, together with the “curves” I see in nature and man-made objects, which were first consciously noticed in my surfing and sailing days, i.e. the curve of a wave, the curve of a well-set sail, the sculptural shape of surfboards and yachts, set my sculptural destiny. To expose “the secrets of the archetypal curve”, I’ve said many times was my sculptural mission – this has had a deep and profound spiritual significance for me.

The period in the country at Wyee was really a time of Zen contemplation, and the sculptures I produced were intended to convey the feeling of contemplation, harmony and deep connection with the natural world so others might experience this and regain some respect for the world of nature.  This concept is not new, the indigenous Australians have a deep spiritual connection with the earth for well over forty  thousand years.

Zen Mind #2 stone 60cm dia

With my wife Sandra we made a  second major move from the Central Coast (Wyee) to Nimbin in northern NSW in 1989. Again we lived in the country, built  our own house and studios, all in direct view of the sacred Nimbin Rocks. I continued creating sculptures for a few years but my spine was getting rapidly worse so this finally brought my sculptural career to an end. Pieces from this period were in stone and wood, all found good homes, Sound of Silence  and Goanna Dreaming  were dearly loved by the children at The Daystar Rudolf Steiner School near Lillian Rock.

Early in the 1990s Rob and some artist friends organized the first serious art exhibitions in Nimbin, the first one was, The Barefoot Sculptor’s Show which is now the site of the highly successful artist’s co-op gallery, Nimbin Artist’s Gallery.

Also at this time I conducted sculpture workshops each week teaching people how to make their own tools with a simple blacksmith’s forge, and how to carve, polish and finish off stone and timber sculpture

After I packed away my hand-forged, hand-made tools I developed a unique body of techno-surrealist 2D artwork. Some of these works incorporate scans of my original sculptures, with and without manipulation using various computer programs.

I now concentrate exclusively on poetry writing, together with experimental/surrealist photography.

Goanna Dreaming camphor laurel (1991) 1.8m high

The following are some quotes of mine which give a good indication of my sculptural mission:

* My sculpture has always been for all people, not  for the critics, museum vaults, nor for the wealthy elite involved with the latest trends.

* Stone is the most earthy, solid material and mystical states are the most ethereal. I try to hint at these states through my manipulation of stone into sculpture.

* I feel a tangible connection between forms characterised by what I call the “archetypal curve” and heightened states of awareness. I cannot explain this in words, only through exposing the secrets of “the archetypal curve” in the unique

language of three dimensional sculpture.

* My sculpture are objects for healing and contemplation, I see them as “four dimensional poetry existing in silence”.

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