The good and seriously wacky of this year’s Sculpture by the Sea

Chinese artist Shen Lieyi has become the first Asian sculptor to scoop Bondi’s Sculpture by the Sea’s $100,000 prize, one of Australia’s richest art awards.

Lieyi’s winning entry, Tracing, is an abstract work of bronze and granite comprising an upturned tree root embedded in a slab of polished stone.

Shen Lieyi’s winning work Tracing. Credit: Janie Barrett

Lieyi plays with the metaphor of going against the flow or walking upstream.

“I’ve always tried to integrate Eastern wisdom and thinking into my creations, and the acceptance of my works by Australians and tourists has inspired me,” the professor of art said in a statement accepting the prize.

“With the help of art, we can share different ideas and thoughts in public spaces, which I believe is the most fascinating aspect of art. A sculpture is not complete until it is seen by the public.”

Sculpture by the Sea founding director David Handley said it been a real surprise that no artist from Asia had received its major acquisitive award before, given the Japanese, Chinese and Korean artists who had, in large numbers, made the walk such an international exhibition.

“Lieyi’s work is structurally fascinating and brilliantly executed,” he said. “The subtlety of the granite carving and uprooted tree holding itself up in the current of life is stunning.”

In its 28th year, Sydney’s iconic walk from Bondi to Tamarama Beach opened to the public under cloudy skies, featuring 100 works by 103 artists from 16 countries. It’s expected to draw 450,000 over the next 18 days.

“For the artists, this event is huge,” Handley said. “This is their opera house. This is their concert hall where they want to perform. Otherwise, for sculptors, it is like singing in the shower.”

Having weathered king tides, wild winds and thunderous east-coast lows since its first year in 1997, this year’s installation has been dramatic.

Ready to launch: Clayton Blake’s Odyssey.Credit: Wolter Peeters

The event has had to contend with a rock slide shutting down part of the two-kilometre coastal walk, storms in China and India delaying freight passage of several sculptures, vigilant customs officers, and now tar balls on the beach.

Tamarama was closed and later reopened on Friday morning due to the discovery of the nuisance pollutants, washed ashore on the eve of its opening.

In May, Sculpture by the Sea lost four exhibition spots due to a rockfall on the northern side of Marks Park, part of its dress circle location.

This year’s sculpture walk includes a showcase of 12 artworks from 10 Indian artists. Massive storms hit the ports of India’s west coast this year, which disrupted freight out of India for months with bottlenecks and delays.

Luckily, Handley said, some of the larger sculptures were made in Australia while others were air freighted with the help of donations.

But 15 works were held up in customs, awaiting inspection, and eight are still there. Five of those were being released on Friday and the rest are likely to be installed by late next week.

Among those delayed is Clayton Blake’s Odyssey, a gleaming stainless-steel rocket ship the creator says is his tribute to human endeavour and travel.

It’s bound to be a crowd-pleaser like previous Sculpture by the Sea hits: the melting Mr Whippy truck, Hot with a Chance of a Late Storm, and Gillian and Marc’s bronze, Buried Hippo. Handley is waiting for more benign weather conditions before Odyssey is craned onto the south Bondi headland.

“The wind is a little stronger than we would like,” he said. “And there is potential rain and therefore lightning. We are watching to see if conditions change. At this stage, we hope it will go up [on] Saturday.”

Highlights

Skin cancer cover-up

Andrew Hankin, who brought the oversized Frying Pan in 2014, is back with a message about skin cancer. With two other creatives, Hankin has created The Spot, a black amorphous shape that grows in size and colour, just like a dangerous melanoma.

The Spot by A. Cooke, A. Hankin, and M. Aberline.Credit: Janie Barrett

Toasted, by Sahara Novotna, is another reminder of the dangers of tanning. Three slices of bread are arrayed on the sand of Tamarama Beach in shades of light to black.

Sharnana

Part shark, part banana, the Sharnana is two metres long, a Dadaesque nonsensical beast made of recycled plastic, calcium carbonate, steel and acrylic paint.

A member of the public photographs Drew McDonald’s Sharnana.Credit: Janie Barrett

The conflation of shark and banana makes no sense, but then again it’s not meant to.

Haruyuki Uchida’s Shape of Water.Credit: Janie Barrett

“To stop, admire and question the reality of a shark coming out of a peeled banana is to question what it means to exist on a rock floating in space,” Drew McDonald says in his artist statement.

Haruyuki Uchida’s Shape of Water

Is it magic? “No, it’s magnets,” says the renowned Japanese sculptor, explaining how his pillar of water sways with the wind. Encased in a stainless-steel jacket, Shape of Water is on a constant lean. Gravitational force and the weight of the object is counterbalanced by opposing magnetic force in an artwork that is as much an artistic statement as an engineering feat. As fragile as it looks, it’s been built to withstand typhoon-level winds.

Sydney Sheila

Justene Williams is a celebrated name in the gallery world. For her first appearance at Sculpture by the Sea, Williams – one of three recipients of the Helen Lempriere Scholarship – has deconstructed the female form.

Made of dense foam with oval mirrors, Sydney Sheila is painted with copious amounts of glitter bought from a $2 shop. “I’ve just kind of poured it on her so it looks a bit gross and showy,” she said.

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