Write-ups and Critiques

The ever-changing landscape scene

The Age Newspaper, Febuary 9, 1994

Adrian Mauriks presents a handsome collection of recent sculptures in the main space, and a mini-retrospective in the smaller bay, at William Mora Gallery. Mauriks's current idiom resembles a form of non-ornamental excess with every shape being manipulated to maximise its decorative potential. His funky objects are an accumulation of flat emblems (such as wings, flowers, hands, spheres, swirls) which have been cut from sheet steel and then welded into symmetrical unity over a tripod.

If there is a delightful cheekiness to most of Mauriks's flamboyant, idiosyncratic pieces, which distinctly recall rococo fountains and candelabra, I found the simplicity and restraint of "Opus 1" and "Opus 3" more satisfying in sculptural terms. Each may be topped by a schematic eye inside a cloud, and the curving shapes beneath do allude to bones, ritual fires and yin-yang spirals. Yet they can sustain oneís attention when viewed as pure statements in abstract form, mass, space and line.

Christopher Heathcote, 1994