savaad
felich

ABOUT SAVAAD:

Savaad commenced his arts practice while employed as a gardener for the Royal Botanical Gardens Melbourne in the late 1970s. His section included the Melbourne Observatory site where the tree crew stored the remnants of cut wood. Students from the Victorian College of the Arts would visit and often work on site to hew out sculptural forms. Notably Bruce Armstrong and Paul Juraseck, now icons in Australian sculpture.

Initially Savaad used a chainsaw and Swiss craftsman Pfeil chisels to carve artworks which were then highly sanded and polished. In time this became a laborious process and after a two year stint of welding, Savaad reverted back to his preferred medium of timber to a more immediate process of lamination, assemblage and construction while also utilising an array of recycled and found objects.

Savaad works from a mud brick studio in Toolangi where he has participated in a number of Yarra Valley Open Studio programs.

Over a forty year period Savaad has amassed considerable experience as a sculptor and curator, including several public commissions in the Yarra Valley, and Artist in Schools Residencies. He has been invited as a judge and speaker on numerous occasions and was site manager for the Toolangi Sculpture Trail events of 1996 and 2016.

Savaad was a casual staff member for the Tarrawarra Museum of Art, assisting with exhibition installation and a crew member for Sculpture by the Sea in 2006. He is also a former curator for the Yering Stations arts program, which included the annual Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition & Awards, which he established in 2001, and Cellar Door Gallery which he administered from 2008 until retirement in 2015.

Savaad’s sculptural pieces are semi abstract figurative, elongated, graceful, balanced, and often colourful and whimsical. He prefers to utilise and repurpose abandoned timbers such as discarded tables and chairs for their shapes. The studio is a large playroom.

A new venture has commenced into 2D abstract art, notably collage works which are then giclee printed and framed.

Medium: sculpture, abstract collage
Tags: figurative sculpture, collage, colour, abstract, mixed media, found objects, recycled material