Artists

Wanda Gillespie is a contemporary artist specialising in sculpture, installation, and public art.

Known for her interactive abacus sculptures and wood-carved figurative works, Wanda Gillespie’s practice explores history, time, truth, and mysticism, drawing from ancient artifacts and nature’s mathematical harmony.

Gillespie has exhibited widely, including at the Institute of Modern Art, Contemporary Art Tasmania, and NGV Design Week. She has been a finalist in major sculpture prizes such as the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, National Contemporary Art Award, and the Blake Prize, winning the Art & Australia/Credit Suisse Award in 2014.

Gillespie’s work is found in numerous private and public collections. She has been awarded several artist residencies including in Indonesia (Asialink, Arts Victoria), at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris and is currently undertaking a 3 year artist in residence at the Victorian Woodworkers Association, Naarm/Melbourne. Recent solo exhibitions include On Counting and Devotion (Craft Victoria) and the Kinetics of Thought (NGV Design Week).

In Residence at Bundanon

Wanda plans to have an explorative week of drawing, painting and small clay sculpting with waterfalls, language and the figurative serving as central motifs for the creation of new work. Her enduring fascination with waterfalls stems from a profound curiosity of time’s fluidity. The waterfall represents a naturally occurring hourglass, as well as contemplation on the transient nature of existence and the eternal cycles of life. Inspired by Boyd’s paintings, Wanda plan’s to look to historical myths, aiming to create figurative sculpture works that reflect aspects of contemporary life and the collective unconscious. She will also continue to develop an alphabet for a fictional mystical language and may spend time forming new letters that can be brought to life in hand drawn or sculptural ways.