SYDNEY.- The intimacy of stolen moments and lost time, of states in-between, which might otherwise feel unimportant amidst major social, political and environmental upheaval, prove essential at Sullivan+Stumpf’s final exhibition of the year, Inbetween Days, by acclaimed sculptor and multidisciplinary artist Tim Silver.

In Untitled (Inbetween Days) and Untitled (Close to me), interlaced feet and clasped hands respectively find urgent repose in one another. An approximation of life, a gesture of existence, their luminous oxidisation is a fixed in-between state of the casting process. To be held here by these works is to be embraced in a way that we have only yearned to be in recent times. Inbetween Days is cathartic intimacy, loss, and vulnerability expressed in the stead of yearning for what could have been, or perhaps for what might be still to come.

Created during the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns, the works of In-Between Days reflect relationships of suspension – between people, objects, space, time and importantly the decalage between intimacy and touch.

A pair of figurative sculptures cast using copper infused plaster is a marker of the times – the artist’s gestural imprint everpresent yet undercut by an eerie iridescent silvery blue, imbued with risk and uncertainty. In the face of this, the tender affection of two hands earnestly embracing from between the sheets, a pair of intertwined feet from under a blanket.

Alongside these new sculptural objects, Silver presents Cacophony, a suite of automatic drawings, featuring handwritten text on thick cream watercolour paper. Works that elegantly evoke the momentariness of the present, each sheet ‘an emotional seismograph’ of the artist in these in-between times. As Julie Ewington notes (Sullivan + Strumpf magazine, Summer 2021) with ‘his hand on the pen, on the paper, marking time that always moves on, but also, simultaneously always seems to be standing stock-still’, Tim Silver dares inhabit the inhospitable now.




A selection of new and past works from Silver’s Trauma and Scar Tissue series are also presented, first created in 2011 and 2014, created from charred remnant tree stumps and amorphous knot forms, burls of damage sustained by trees, resulting in the cast forms. Here they are cast in pigmented polyurethane and some represented as doubles, within the space of the gallery.

A multi-disciplinary artist, working across sculpture, photography, and installation, Tim Silver’s work reflects an underlying fascination with this changeable nature of the human condition, inextricably hinged on time, both conceptually and materially.

Tim Silver, Inbetween Days launches Thursday November 25 at Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney, 799 Elizabeth Street, Zetland, until Thursday December 21, when the Gallery will close for a short Christmas break.

The multidisciplinary practice of Sydney-based artist Tim Silver is inextricably hinged on time, both conceptually and materially. Working across sculpture, photography and installation, Silver explores the interface between time and decay, particularly in relation to the human body. His sculptures are often made from entropic materials which begin to decompose from the moment of their assembly. By photographically capturing these stages of decay, the artist presents us with a microcosmic image of our own inevitable trajectory towards death. There is a paradoxical beauty that emerges from within the warped and crumbled forms, precipitating a poignant awareness of the preciousness and fragility of human life.

Silver’s works are held in many important collections, including Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Australia Council for the Arts; Mint Museum, North Carolina, United States; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Ten Cubed Collection, Melbourne and University of Queensland Art Museum Collection, Brisbane.

Selected solo and group exhibitions include Versus Rodin: Bodies across space and Time, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (2017); Primavera at 25: Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Collection, Murray Art Museum (MAMA), Albury (2017); Yinchuan Biennale: For an Image, Faster than Light, Museum of Contemporary Art Yinchuan, China, (2016); You Promised Me Poems, Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney (2016); Oneirophrenia, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2016); Talking to the Shadows, McClelland Sculpture Park & Gallery, Langwarrin (2015); Ten Cubed Collection, Melbourne (2013); Seven Points (Part Two): Daniel Boyd, Newell Harry, Kate Mitchell, Tim Silver, Embassy of Australia, Washington DC (2013); We used to talk about love, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2013); Parallel Collisions, 2012 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; and I-lands, Kunsthallen brandts, Copenhagen, Denmark (2009).