For Louise Nevelson

<p dir="ltr">Background </p><p dir="ltr">This research investigates the performative relationship between language and object-making, examining how written statements function as invocations that activate sculptural works. Drawing parallels between magical practice and research frameworks, the work explores how words combined with objects shape meaning and reality—analogous to how research statements construct relationships with artworks. The research engages with established scholarship connecting art and occult practices, including Katy Siegel's "The Black Wallpaper: Louise Nevelson's Gothic Modernism," and recent curatorial investigations such as the State Library's 'The Creative Act' (examining spiritual connections and rituals in artistic practice), McLellan Gallery's 'Eternal Oblivion: death & the afterlife', and Buxton Contemporary's 'The Veil' (exploring uncanny and supernatural qualities in contemporary art). This positions the work within broader discourse on how contemporary sculpture engages with esoteric knowledge systems and the performative function of institutional language. </p><p dir="ltr">Contribution </p><p dir="ltr">The sculpture contributes to understanding of cyclical making processes and material transformation through an ongoing practice of creating, destroying, and remaking works from scavenged plastic. This generates a self-cannibalising system where sculptures provide their own detritus for subsequent iterations—a sustainable, low-cost process that challenges conventional notions of the finished artwork. The work functions as a conceptual repository for investigating Louise Nevelson's assemblage practice and relationships between art and occult traditions, while simultaneously interrogating how institutional frameworks (research statements, exhibition contexts, collection acquisitions) operate as contemporary forms of invocation that determine an object's meaning and value. This contributes to discourse on materiality, process-based practice, and the performative dimensions of research documentation in creative practice. </p><p dir="ltr">Significance </p><p dir="ltr">The work's significance is evidenced through selection as a finalist in The Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award (shortlisted from approximately 300 entries to 40 finalists), judged by Professor Emeritus Barbara van Ernst and Dr. Dan Wollmering. The sculpture's acquisition by Deakin University Art Collection represents institutional validation equivalent to peer review processes, demonstrating the work's contribution to contemporary sculpture discourse. The 8 week exhibition period at Deakin University Art Gallery provided extended public engagement and critical reception, establishing the work's relevance to ongoing conversations about material practice, cyclical processes, and the intersection of contemporary art with esoteric knowledge systems.</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p>