Richard Butlin

Richard Butlin

Dense Nest

1 August - 25 August 2024

23 Foster St, Surry Hills

Opening reception: 1 August, 6-8 PM 

PIERMARQ* Projects is pleased to present Dense Nest, an exhibition by Australian artist, Richard Butlin. 

Richard Butlin is a Sydney-based artist who primarily works with discarded objects, recycled materials, and installation equipment to create sculptural assemblages. He studied at The Australian National University, graduating in 2007 with a degree in both Philosophy and Visual Arts, with Honours in Ceramics. For the last eight years Butlin has run his own art installation business, gaining immense insight and experience within the art world, whilst honing his own creative practice.

Requiring great care and precision in his installation work, Butlin finds relief in the freedom of his own practice. Assembling the detritus of his everyday - crates and packing material, the old furniture of paintings, and improper or inadequate hanging wires and frames, Butlin draws on technical and representational methods, as well as art historical references found in the many artworks he has installed over the years, culminating into his own unique visual language.

Dense Nest is a homage to nature and the built environment. From the way birds perch and parade to the refuse and rust of city life, Dense Nest negotiates the relationship between the material and the natural world. Abstract in form, Butlin’s sculptures take cues from dance, shadow and light as they inhabit a space between pure expression and eclectic reasoning. Rich in symbolism and allegory, birds are, for Butlin, the flighty witnesses to the human world.