Australian Galleries Smith Street is delighted to present Hearth, an exhibition of recent work by renowned artist and writer Richard Tipping.  The interplay of text and material is central to the practice of Richard Tipping, who describes himself as a poet who works in the art world. Tipping’s word works develop from an interest in extending the visual boundaries of language and convey his desire to create “textual objects which have the heft and dimensionality of sculpture”

One of the central works of the exhibition is Hearth – Hear the Art 2008.  Building upon the ancient tradition of word squares, Tipping arranges the letters H, E, A, R and T to create multiple readings, with 36 letters bound in a tightly-knit square. In the artist’s words: “This patterning of letters found in the word ‘hearth’ (as well as heart, earth, and so on) has the satisfactions of repeatability as a structure: it is almost architectural in form, balancing elements into a useful ‘dwelling’ upon core ideas which emerge from the arrangement itself which is robust, and repeatable.”

Since his first solo show in 1978, Tipping has made sculpture using materials from granite and engraved wood to animated neon and die-cast aluminium, as well as a wide variety of works on paper. His humorous and politically charged versions of road signs have achieved international recognition.

Richard Tipping has exhibited widely in Australia and held solo exhibitions in New York and London as well as in major cities in Europe. He is represented in all of the state art galleries, and in depth in the National Gallery of Australia, as well as in international collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His public sculpture commissions include permanent large-scale installations in the arts precincts of Brisbane and Adelaide.