Ron Mueck

Sculpture

19 December 2002 - 2 March 2003

Incorporating new sculptures created by leading Australian-born, London-based artist Ron Mueck during his residency as the fifth National Gallery's Associate Artist in London, this exhibition represented the first showing of Mueck's work, acclaimed throughout Europe and the United States, in Australia.

Mueck brings to his artistic practice over two decades of experience as a professional model-maker working in television, advertising and motion picture special effects - including Labyrinth and The Story Teller. He skillfully manipulates the scale of these compelling, sometimes unsettling lifelike figures, complete with veins, stubble, even saliva, to convey complex psychological states in works that are either much larger or smaller than life-size.

Moving to the United Kingdom from Australia in the early 1980s, Mueck's first venture into the art world was in 1996, with the creation of a figure of Pinocchio for his mother-in-law, the renowned British painter Paula Rego. The piece was exhibited alongside her paintings in the major exhibition, Spellbound, at the Hayward Gallery, London. The interest generated by this work led to Mueck's inclusion in the controversial 1997 exhibition, Sensation, where he presented Dead Dad - a small-scale, hyper-real sculpture of the artist's father created from memory.

Mueck recently received both public and critical acclaim for his 4.5 metre crouching Boy which filled the cavernous space of London's Millenium Dome (2000) and later featured as the centrepiece at the Venice Biennale in 2001. He also recently had a solo exhibition at the Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC.

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