HUGO BLOMLEY - 'Pump Cover'
Neon Parc Brunswick - 11th September - 10th October 2026
NB - Click on images for enlargement
Installation view
A spare show of just five mainly large Minimalist sculptures commands the vast Neon Parc Brunswick space with deceptive ease. The show is titled, prosaically, ‘Pump Cover’ while all works are untitled, as has been the artist’s custom. And if any of them readily suggest a non-descript industrial fixture, it is the two smallest works, basically orbs or door knobs affixed to separate walls. A show where all works are untitled presents special difficulties to a review seeking to discuss particulars. Luckily, ample reproductions enable us to differentiate between them. It is one of the many real advantages to publishing art criticism on the web.
Untitled (2026) 17 X 14 X 14 cm, bronze unique
Installation view
The placement of the two smaller works, directly facing the three larger pieces, are what sets the show apart from a more traditional arrangement and enables an elaborate metaphor for bodily vigour, explored at length in the excellent catalogue essay by Tara Heffernan. Certainly, the dimensions of the gallery space amplify these spatial relations, make the smaller works particularly small, the larger works especially isolated within the space.
The positioning of the small, highly polished orbs introduces a spatial and scalar measurement to the larger pieces and urges a figurative reading to their biomorphic shapes. Two are upright and one lies on the floor, but all exhibit the irregular curves familiar to us from art history. It is the contrast with the wall fixtures that is unusual and grants the space a strangely charged drama. Under the interpretation of body-building, this drama casts the larger works as isolated figures, engaged in exercise for essentially narcissistic ends. Whether this reflects on the project of contemporary sculpture in general, is moot. One might sense a stretching to the polished bronze piece, a rippling aspiration, while the darker piece conveys an enclosed bracing or protective sense. Even the floor-bound piece takes on a flexing symmetry, recalling various bodily exertions. And this view of the activities surely reflects the artist’s psychology in some way, as does the choice of body-building as an avenue for sculpture. But perhaps we need not probe too far on this point.
Installation view
All works are highly polished, in every sense. Even where a patina is allowed, as in the floor-bound piece, the high degree of finish approaches industrial standards or fabrication. This would be commonplace to contemporary sculpture except that Blomley then asks of it just the kind of traditional associations with the figure seemingly ignored by slick fabrication. It is a teasing paradox.
Untitled (2026) 40 X 275 X 40 cm patinated bronze, unique
The contrast between the two smallest works and the larger ones is threefold. There is firstly the scale, secondly the smaller works are attached the wall at roughly waist height rather than free-standing, and thirdly there is the difference in shape, the smaller works have an even, smooth orb where the larger works have irregular curves. This contrast prompts relations between parts and in this way gives the work the quality of an ensemble or perhaps suite. Once discerned, there is then scope for a metaphor in which the smaller, mechanical orbs can be seen as ‘pump covers’ in the vernacular of body-building, in which physique is temporarily concealed by loose clothing, or as false modesty. This interpretation is pursued at length in the catalogue essay. But whether we see the smaller works as merely plausible industrial fixtures or a knowing accompaniment to the central ‘drama’ depends upon a more direct reading of the figurative elements to the larger pieces. And this, as indicated, is to some extent off-set by the high finish.
Untitled (2026) 194 X 55 X 34 cm patinated bronze and stainless steel, unique
One takes the figurative reading, only to find the smaller, more regular or mechanical elements absorbed into it as well. This unusual twist accounts for the work’s impact.
Installation view
Contemporary art grapples with an expanded field of reference, with the task of representing the full spectrum of contemporary life. Sculpture finds additional paths or rivals in assemblage and installation and the literal sampling of materials from the real world, with re-purposing and adaptation blurring the line between form and content, sculpture and other branches of the arts. What is there left for sculpture? What is there in three-dimensional reference that still feels fresh? Contemporary sculpture has often taken toys and dolls as its models for its somewhat degraded figuration, in the work of say, Stephen Balkenhol or Stella Hamberg, while abstract properties have been pursued to industrial components or products, using fabrication, as in the work of a Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst, for example. Sculpture finds a role for itself in sampling these common genres and practices, in tasting the weight, scale and textures of masses, of the colour and surfaces of a confronted world. While less visible than painting in this, the project is essentially the same.
To return to more traditional biomorphic associations perhaps suggests an impatience or exhaustion with these current modes and an interest in a more allusive realm. At the same time, Blomley is clearly attracted to the highly finished product, so the work is far from a retreat to traditional means. He juggles his options at this stage. It is notable that the show is an advance in this respect on last year’s ‘The Same Eyes As Yesterday’ (Neon Parc South Yarra) in which a more rough-hewn approach was taken to modelling and casting and a more modular approach to object assembly.
The artist’s studio 2025 [NOT IN SHOW]
Interestingly, the 2025 work features added colour to works, an option downplayed in the current show where patinas largely fulfil the role.
Untitled (2025)- 37 X 37 X 82 cm (fibreglass,2K epoxy and automotive paint) [NOT IN SHOW]
Yet colour may also accent the figurative or bodily, as in Untitled (2025) suggesting perhaps that the content has become too obvious or uncomfortable. And the balance between content alluded to and declared is clearly very much part of Blomley’s approach to technique, scale and placement.
Untitled (20205) 50 X 104 X 32 cm fibreglass, epoxy, pigment. [NOT IN SHOW]
The artist’s roots in Minimalism are clear, but with Pump Cover it seems the irregularities in casting and modelling technique have been converted to irregular curves to shape and plane, recalling perhaps Constantin Brancusi or Henry Moore. Yet the bracketing of this with more industrial modules, such as the smaller works is a bit like matching Brancusi’s Bird in Space (1924+) with similar door handles and the effect may be comic or Dada, an aspect perhaps overlooked in the careful interpretation of body-building’s dress code. Are there other interpretations of Pump Cover? None with the ingenious vernacular meaning to body-building, but a more literal meaning as commercial or industrial fixture suggests pretext or excuse in name may be enough of a joke. But really, this is an issue for the artist’s future work, and whether he can find more than body-building for his figures, more than irregularities for his casting.
IMAGES COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND NEON PARC
THANKS TO BOTH FOR HELP IN PREPARING THIS REVIEW
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