made in nowa nowa

hole 6: farmyard : metung
daniel
jenkins
Daniel has worked his entire
career as a studio artist with bouts
of teaching at the VCA and Melb
Uni. These days he hides out in his
Metung idyll mainly. Making and
talking art. He has work in several
major public collections in Australia,
including a couple of pieces in the
National Gallery of Australia.
‘My material is copper for its
malleability and colourability and
stayability. It is from the earth and
is part of the earth in its art form.
The work here, Farmyard, is a
collection of iconic if not stereotypical
farm things and people. Characters,
I call them. They represent, in a
cartooned manner, the icons that
feed us but are all but forgotten with
the next day’s ablution.
Farmyard things keep us all alive and
the country quaint, if not agricultural
in a tourism kind of way. And
agricultural is the style with which I
have approached these pieces.
I was raised on a cotton and tobacco
farm in south Georgia and have
a first-hand understanding of the
unthanked life of a farmer. Well, a
12 year old cotton picking farmhand,
in my case.
So these figures are as much from
my life as they are representative,
in a stylised manner, the things we
drive past in the country and rarely
experience first hand unless we are
one.
If they could have been bronze statues
with plaques they would have been.
Hats off.
Image: Farmyard girl awaiting installation.