Trefor Prest Explained

Trefor Prest (26 June 1945, Cardiff, UK) is a Welsh-born Australian sculptor living in Victoria since 1961. He produces highly-finished intricate and puzzling, often humorous, quasi-mechanical or machine-age constructions that are the subject of solo shows in major public and commercial galleries and feature in national and international group exhibitions, including the Mildura Sculpture Triennials.[1]

Biography

Trefor Geraint Prest was born on 26 June 1945 in Cardiff to John and Olive Prest (nee Hamlin), a teacher, and spent his childhood in Barrow a major South Wales coal port,[2] and was the sole sibling of younger sister Lynda. Memory of the town's extensive industrial landscapes and its machinery were to become an inspiration for Prest's sculpture. He studied at the Croydon College of Art in 1960, but was expelled from the course before migrating with his family to Australia on 2 May 1961 when he was sixteen on the S.S. Fairsky from Southampton under the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme.[3]

He was conscripted into the Australian army, and while a student living in Lytton Street, Glenroy and completing a Diploma of Art (sculpture) at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, he and Stephen Benwell were charged and fined $50 for pasting posters advertising the 1971 Vietnam Moratorium march on walls and front windows of the new Gallery building. Three female accomplices were not fined and Lenton Parr, principal of the National Gallery Art School, was reported as saying; "there was no damage to the building, so the trustees were prepared to overlook the matter," and "the trustees believe it a pity the matter had not been referred to me originally."[4]

Prest completed his diploma in 1973; a single arts subject, Modern European History, at La Trobe University, Melbourne;[5] and welding and structural drawing, at the RMIT during 1972-74; and undertook graduate studies at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School during 1974-75. He started exhibiting in 1971.[6]

While studying, Prest visited the Cape Schanck area to enjoy diving and solitude, and in the early 1970s purchased a building block there for $500 on which he practised his welding in constructing a small underground building with second-hand materials that he brought from Melbourne on his motor-bike. After the 1980s it fell into disrepair and he sold the block. During 1974 Prest travelled and studied in the UK and Europe and again in 1976, visiting the UK, Europe, Middle East, and Asia.[7]

In 1982 Prest, his wife Belinda, an artist and dance and yoga teacher whom he met at the Gallery School, and their family of three, moved from a hilly rural block Kalorama in the Dandenongs to Sandon in Central Victoria.[8] He was employed at Barkla Engineering in Newstead making truck trays, and has for 30 years been an active volunteer in the Country Fire Authority Newstead brigade. After six months in Sandon he moved to renovate and expand an 1890 miner's cottage on 12Ha in Strangways and to concentrate on his sculpture and family.[9] [10]

Prest lectured in Sculpture at the University of Ballarat from 1995-1996.[11]

Style and reception

Prest's work, produced using engineering techniques including forging, turning, riveting, pressing and welding with some woodworking and sewing,[12] and made from scrap iron, brass and copper with some wooden and canvas elements, is mechanical in appearance and structure, though it is based on the human form.[13] [14] [15] His early experiences of the Welsh docks provided inspiration for the machine-like, and sometimes operable, structures he makes.[16] Critic Sasha Grishin responds to the humour in Prest works like Dogger Bank. His work has been described as "mechanically perfect but functionally absurd machines,"[17] while Robert Rooney asserts that;

Nothing could be more eccentric than the "scultpures" of Trefor Prest. These structures which look like ancient dental equipment or some other type of torture machine seem to have no reason except to satisfy the sculptor's desire to construct a well-engineered, but useless, contraption.

In 1978, critic John Davies, in reviewing the Seventh Mildura Sculpture Triennial judged "Trefor Prest's Surreal, machine-like Tales from the valley below, exhibited in the Bakery…one of the finest pieces in the Triennial."[18]

In reviewing Prest's 1990 solo show at Pinacotheca gallery in The Age Peter Hill wrote that;

Parts of each work in turn remind the spectator of submarines, sextants, trawlers, farm machinery, pendulums, and 19th Century scientific instruments. They all look purposeful but are in fact functionless, and for that reason fit well with Lothar Romain's views of deconstruction. Romain was one of the selectors of the last Documenta and, as an antipost-modernist, described deconstruction as "a means of setting up a model with the help of construction elements such as ordinary everyday objects. In this model these construction elements are experienced to have no significance at all and have lost their original meaning." By extension, the use of everyday objects can embrace everyday manufacturing processes, fashioning a new artistic revolution from an old industrial revolution. Trefor Prest is one of the best artists in the world at this, along with a few others such as Donald Lipski. Both fashion very different art objects through very similar attitudes to three dimensional construction.[19]

His design for an elaborate ceremonial mace was commissioned by Federation University, Ballarat, in 1995.[20]

In 2014 director Paul Cox in filming his feature Force of Destiny (2015) based on Cox's experience with liver cancer and a liver transplant, used Prest's studio and work to portray the film's hero (David Wenham) as a sculptor.[21] [22]

At auction in 2003 at Christies, Prest's Taffrail Delights (1989) in wood, copper, tin, steel, stainless steel (152 x 65 x 42 cm) was purchased for AUD 4,465.00 beating an estimate of AUD 800 - AUD 1,200[23]

Exhibitions

Solo

Group

Awards

Collections

Bibliography

External sites

Notes and References

  1. Germaine, Max. Artists and Galleries of Australia, Volumes 1 & 2, Third Edition. Craftsman Press, Sydney, 1990. Page 557
  2. Web site: Printmaking. Prints and. Trefor Prest. 2021-08-22. www.printsandprintmaking.gov.au. en.
  3. Web site: RecordSearch National Archives of Australia. 2021-08-22. National Archives of Australia.
  4. "2 students fined on Gallery poster charges," The Age, Saturday 7 Aug 1971, p.24
  5. Web site: Geocaching. Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site. 2021-08-22. www.geocaching.com. en.
  6. Book: Scarlett, Ken. Australian sculptors. 1980. 532. Thomas Nelson (Australia). 0-17-005292-3. West Melbourne, Vic.. 6943806.
  7. McCulloch, Alan McCulloch, Susan McCulloch, Emily McCulloch-Childs. The New McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art. 4th Edition, Aus Art Melbourne & The Miegunyah Press, 2006. Page 795
  8. Kerry Anderson, Neil Lorimer (photographs), "Industrial Evolution", Australian Country Style, December 1997, p.94-7
  9. Interview, Castlemaine Mail, Friday 20 August 2021, p.2
  10. Andrews. Russell. November 1997. Blame it on the donkey!. The Owner Builder. Russell Andrews & Assoc. 83. 6–10. 0728-7275. 320857715.
  11. Web site: Photograph - Black and White, The University of Ballarat Mace, 1996. 2021-08-22. Victorian Collections. en.
  12. BARLOW, G., 2010, 28 Jul. For art's sake, Trefor's pedal is Prest to the metal. The Weekly Times, 91. ISSN 0817-1939.
  13. Web site: Regional Arts Victoria. 2021-08-22. www.rav.net.au. en.
  14. Web site: Sculpture. Trefor Prest. Trefor Prest Sculpture. 2021-08-22. Trefor Prest Sculpture. en.
  15. Web site: Trefor Prest. 2021-08-22. Arts Open: Visual Arts Festival. en-US.
  16. Bak . Henk . Maritime sculptures . Craft Arts International . January 1995 . 34 . 84–86 .
  17. Sturgeon . Graeme . In Pursuit of the Idea: Recent Australian Sculpture . Meanjin . July 1980 . 39 . 2 . 212–221 .
  18. John Davies, "Earth and Steel: Mildura's Seventh Sculpture Triennial," Art and Australia, Volume 16 Number 1, Spring, September 1978
  19. News: Peter . Hill . Sculpture with an odd feeling . The Age . 19 September 1990 . 14 .
  20. Web site: Sculpture - Mace, 'University Mace' by Trefor Prest, 1995. 2021-08-22. Victorian Collections. en.
  21. Web site: Knight. Hannah. 2014-03-29. Sculptures shine in film. 2021-08-22. Bendigo Advertiser. en-AU.
  22. Lucas . Rose . The challenge of life: Paul Cox's 'Force of destiny' . Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine . January 2016 . 187 . 40–43 .
  23. Web site: TREFOR PREST (b. 1945). 2021-08-22. www.christies.com. en.
  24. Jan Blensdorf, The Age Friday 28 Sep 1990, p.30
  25. Listing, The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 23 Aug 1991, p.50
  26. "Fast Forward: Voyage of discovery," The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, 20 Jul 1991, p.148
  27. Listing, "Galleries", The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday, 25 February 1994, p.56
  28. Advertising, The Age Thursday 22 Sep 1994, p.19
  29. Anonymous, 13 March 2013. AN exhibition inspired by the indigenous art of trapping. The Standard, 17.
  30. News: Knight . Hannah . VAC paving the way for change in year ahead . Bendigo Advertiser . 26 January 2014 .
  31. Web site: Vivian. Helen. Hewitt. Susan. Bridie. Sandie. History of the Ewing and George Paton Galleries 1971-1990. University of Melbourne Student Union.
  32. Maureen Gilchrist, "Preaching, but poor practice," The Age, Wednesday 1 Oct 1975, p.2
  33. Nancy Borlase, "One martyr, many views," The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 1 Apr 1978, p.15
  34. Robert Rooney, "Bower-bird sculpture," The Age, Thursday 21 Feb 1980, p.2
  35. Benalla Art Gallery & Mauriks, Adrian & Benalla Art Gallery (1980). 15 sculptors : Jock Clutterbuck, Peter Cole, John Davis, Elwyn Dennis, Bonita Ely, Jacek Grzelecki, Noelene Lucas, Adrian Mauriks, Kevin Mortenson, Fiona Orr, Trefor Prest, Colin Suggett, Sue Vaughan, David Wilson, Ray Woolard. Benalla Art Gallery
  36. Nancy Borlase, "Mockery menaces the dream," The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 11 Jul 1981, p.47
  37. Web site: Pinacotheca (Melbourne, Vic.) : Australian Gallery File. 2021-08-22. National Library of Australia.
  38. News: 1993-10-02. Exploring concepts of Aussie humour. 5. Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995). 2021-08-22.
  39. In Tung, J., & Singapore Art Museum,. (2018). Singapore Art Museum: An index of exhibitions 1994-2018, p.61
  40. News: . Iles . Kieran . Three times the art fun . The Bendigo Advertiser . 13 December 2014 .
  41. BLACK, J., 5 May 2017. Interactive sculpture at Backspace Gallery. The Courier, 6. ISSN 1037-0374.
  42. CLUFF, C., 6 May 2017. Art on the move. The Courier, 36. ISSN 1037-0374.
  43. Web site: Trefor Prest. 2021-08-22. Arts Open: Visual Arts Festival. en-US.
  44. Marchant . Leslie R. . The scholar and good government . Quadrant . October 1998 . 42 . 10 . 64–67 .
  45. Web site: 2020-02-25. Trefor Prest. 2021-08-22. Artbank. en.
  46. Web site: Trefor Prest, collection of the Newcastle Art Gallery. 2021-08-22. Newcastle Art Gallery, collections.
  47. Web site: RecordSearch National Archives of Australia. 2021-08-22. recordsearch.naa.gov.au.
  48. News: . Machen . Mary . Pieces of history showcased . The Examiner . 13 Sep 2014 . 32 .

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