Ian Mackay | Sydney Sculpture
In a two-part exhibition Defiance Gallery is hitting the mark with its celebration of the lineage of steel sculpture in Australia. Beginning this survey is Ian McKay (1936 – 2007), whose major work The Flight of the Blackbird – impressive in both scale and standard – will take centre stage as the solo work at Defiance Gallery this July.
Alongside this, opening 10 August, a major survey show will include the works of Janik Bouchette, Michael Buzacott, Paul Hopmeier, Jan King, Brian Koerber, Ian McKay, Russell McQuilty, Kevin Norton, Campbell Robertson-Swann, James Rogers, Paul Selwood, Harvey Shields, Michael Snape, Dave Teer and David Wilson at Defiance Gallery at the Yellow House, Potts Point.
Bringing Sydney sculpture to the forefront, the two exhibitions celebrate the individual language and the diversity of the medium. Each artist is linked by a camaraderie formed through a rich history of exhibiting, studying, teaching and travelling together over the last forty years.
Not just putting McKay’s work on a pedestal, Defiance Gallery is granting the work the whole gallery space as a mark of respect for the Australian artist’s pivotal role in Australian sculpture, and influence over the artists exhibited in Sydney Sculpture.
McKay began his career as a carver after studying under Lyndon Dadswell at the National Art School in Sydney. He travelled internationally including in Spain, Greece, United Kingdom and Switzerland from 1961-63, and after meeting art critic Clement Greenberg in Sydney he was prompted to move to New York with his family in October 1981.
Whilst initially a stone carver he progressed to fabricating in wood and then finally welded-steel sculpture. In 1985 he returned to live in Kurrajong, Australia, where he could make works outside without space restrictions, and where The Flight of the Blackbird was created.
Commanding in stature and medium The Flight of the Blackbird is 2.5m high, and despite its density the spacious composition is balanced, and in some parts appears to float. In an interview with Harvey Shields in 2006, McKay discussed the process of putting it together. Created outside “because it didn’t imply boundaries”, a truck was backed up to the work with connecting cables to “pull it up, or pull it halfway up then weld something onto the back to get it to stand. I was working as if the thing in front of me presented no limitation in terms of weight or scale. It was no different to working with something the size of your hand, which you can easily manipulate,” stated Mckay.
As such Shields and McKay agreed that this process resulted in the effect of the endless nature of the work, with McKay adding “it’s as if the sculpture had no top or bottom, or weight. It was like free-for-all. Every stage of it was unexpected.”
Layered and intricate in its many shapes and forms, the geometry reveals itself as the eye travels around the work. This work demands the viewer be present to experience its elusive multiplicity.
Ian McKay |The Flight of the Blackbird opens Wednesday 27 July, kicking off an exciting and necessary exposé into Australian steel sculptors.
EXHIBITION
Ian McKay | The Flight of the Blackbird
Wednesday 27 July
Defiance Gallery, Sydney
Image: Ian McKay, The Flight of the Blackbird, 1988, steel, waxed, 240 x 198 x 113cm
Images and quotes courtesy the artist, Defiance Gallery and Harvey Shields.
Although physically he is of modest stature, Zofrea has devoted much of his life to grand projects that have been conceived and executed on a...
Through a multidisciplinary collaboration between Rotterdam-based curators, architect Paul Cournet of CLOUD and artist-designer Sabine Marcelis of Studio Sabine Marcelis, the exhibition explores the interplay...
Artificial intelligence will be used by young artists who started using it as kids on their phones. They will see it as a natural extension...
This year’s Biennale arrives under more complex circumstances than most. It is shaped by the profound loss of its curator, Koyo Kouoh (1967–2025), whose exhibition...
No artist creates in isolation. Every painting carries traces of the conversations, places and histories that shaped it, preserving within its surface a particular moment...
The weekend markets at Fairfield Showground have been one of Western Sydney’s great institutions for more than fifty years. Fresh fruit and vegetables, children’s clothes,...
In recent times, Yorgos Lanthimos has shifted toward photography, noting in a Guardian interview, 2026, that he needs respite, saying, “it might be a couple...
In Australia, political cartoons were altered by several events during the 1960s: the arrival of Les Tanner’s (1927‒2001) instinctual wit at The Bulletin, Bruce Petty’s...
Recognition of the importance of early bark paintings and their link to the world’s oldest continuing culture, is what makes them both highly sought and...