Shotgun artists’ new masterpiece to debut at Queensland’s premier outdoor sculpture festival
A Queensland artist’s career has blossomed since she combined her passion for shooting with her love of art with the newest masterpiece to debut at the annual Swell Sculpture Festival.
QLD News
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The artist raised the double barrelled shotgun to her shoulder and fired.
Two loud whip-cracking-like sounds rang out as the mum-of-two masterfully hit her unusual target.
Donned in sunglasses, black top and slacks with her hair pulled back, Rae Saheli cocked the now-smoking 12-gauge, reloaded and returned to a firing position.
Left hand cradling the barrel, right arm held high, she pulled the trigger twice more.
Shotgun pellets sprayed over the large pieces of petal- shaped aluminium as she brought her newest masterpiece to life.
The process was methodically repeated every two shots, until hundreds of holes formed a pattern over the metal canvas.
A bright sunny day on a shooting range is not a typical studio for most artists but it was where Mrs Saheli, 51, of Palm Beach, spent hours creating her newest sculpture, dubbed ‘Frenetic Flowers’.
The final artwork, which will debut at this year’s annual Swell Sculpture Festival on the Gold Coast, comprises three large flowers of different sizes, moulded from the shot-up aluminium.
“They’re roughly from about 1.5m up to 2m or so wide,” Mrs Saheli said.
“I shot about 250 shots for probably half of the flowers, and probably nearly 500 shots over all three (of them).”
Mrs Saheli said she chose the name because of the main ‘tool’ used in their creation.
“‘Frenetic’ means fast paced and energetic so I think it suits the actual mark making tool I’ve used, which is the 12 gauge shotgun,” she said.
“I’m also a bit like that, fairly energetic and can be a bit of a whirlwind.
“(Shooting) is probably when I’m at my calmest.”
The competitive clay target shooter said the centre of the flowers were also made from repurposed shotgun shells.
“I collect the shells from the (gun) club grounds, cut the silver brass casing off the end of them and I’m using those for the stamens,” she said.
“So they are finding new life at the heart of the flower.”
For many visitors to the Swell Sculpture Festival the giant pieces of ‘shotgun art’, which took months to create, will simply be a unique sculpture glistening on Currumbin Beach’s’ garden of sand.
But, metaphorically, Frenetic Flowers is a symbol of how shooting led to unexpected growth in Mrs Saheli’s creativity level as well as in her personal relationships.
The Brisbane Gun Club member never thought she would combine her love of the sport with her artistic side.
For that, she credits one of her TAFE visual arts teachers who, in 2018, challenged the then mostly-landscape painter to explore shooting as an art form.
“She asked why I was not exploring the shooting side of art as it’s my love, my passion,” she said.
“She was saying ‘It’s your story’ ... and all of a sudden I had this light bulb moment.”
Mrs Saheli, who was then a member of the Gold Coast Gun Club in Ashmore, started experimenting with unused cartridge shells and different canvases before evolving to shooting different surfaces.
“All of a sudden I (was) a mad scientist,” she said.
What the technical assistant did not anticipate was the knock-on effect the merging of her firearms-related sport and art would have on others.
While her art career soon blossomed, the gun clubs also serendipitously became a nurturing ground for cultivating relationships across generations and different walks of life.
Within weeks of Mrs Saheli experimenting with shotgun-created art, she said she had piqued the interest of some fellow gun club members so much they started offering suggestions on different materials to shoot.
“It helped knocked down a barrier a little bit with the guys with art … To get people interested in art is a hard thing,” she said.
“A lot of the guys from that club came and supported my first solo exhibition in 2020. For many, it was the first time they had ever set foot in an art gallery.”
Despite being a lifelong artist, target shooting has been the main hobby that also presented opportunities for Mrs Saheli to inadvertently strengthen bonds within her own family.
While she was the first in her immediate family to compete in the sport, her son, William, now 17, joined her when he turned 11.
The Gold Coast woman said she felt “privileged” to have some mother-son bonding time, especially through the teenage years.
“I’m very lucky. He’s 17 and I get to hang out with him … when we shoot together.”
Mrs Saheli’s husband Rodney, 62, also now competes while their youngest son, Nathan, 13, has had a dabble.
She said the sport has also helped teach their sons responsibility, as well as provided an opportunity to interact with older generations while at the gun club.
“It teaches them how to interact with everyone ... and opens up the communication with all generations,” she said.
“(These days) we’re kind of losing a bit of that personal interaction.”
It was an older generation that first sparked the shotgun artists’ interest in shooting.
Even though her father was a shooter, he didn’t share it with his daughter as a child in because, she said “back then it was still a very male dominated sport.”
Yet she still fell into the sport in her mid-20s after a friend taught her to shoot clay targets on a farm in Victoria.
After that, her father realised she was hooked.
“My dad finally worked out that I could actually shoot so he said ‘come along and have a shoot with me’, which was probably about 2004,” Mrs Saheli said.
All that’s left is her mum.
“My mother always asks how I go (at competitions), but she has never seen me shoot as she isn’t interested in guns,” she said.
“Hopefully one day.”
The artist, who also makes wearable art, jewellery and other items out of recycled shotgun shells, is scheduled to be among a record more than 350 creators at the Swell Sculpture Festival on the Gold Coast from September 6-15.
Currumbin Beach, off Pacific Parade in Currumbin, will be turned into a 1km outdoor art gallery featuring more than 60 large sculptures, a gallery of smaller works, installations, and performance art from local, interstate and international artists over the free 10-day festival.
Additionally, workshops and pop up displays will appear throughout other parts of the City of Gold Coast.
Artists in the main exhibition along Currumbin Beach will vie for more than $40,000 in cash awards and bursaries.
About 174,000 people visited the Swell Sculpture Festival in 2023, compared to the approximate 6,000 who visited the inaugural festival 2003.
Since then, 873 sculptures have been exhibited on the beach, thanks to the award-winning, not-for-profit arts organisation.
MORE INFORMATION:
WHAT: SWELL Sculpture Festival
WHEN: September 6-15, 2024
WHERE: Main exhibition on Currumbin Beach, off Pacific Parade, Currumbin, Gold Coast
COST: Free
VISIT: swellsculpture.com.au
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