Todd’s Profile .

Marc Chagall observed that ‘Great art picks up where nature ends’, and certainly the observation of organic forms is a starting point for me. Ideas that spring from an experience of nature are often profound: wonder is ignited, beautiful analogies emerge and principles crystallise.

Translating these ideas into sculpture involves a deep engagement with form and medium, and a heartfelt investment in the creative process. My understanding of what it means to resolve an artwork has been enriched by a background in industrial design. Reaching a point of final resolution takes time, experience, mastery of medium and a rare degree of artisanal ability.

I am uncompromising in this regard because I remain committed to providing a satisfying and harmonious experience from our first meeting through to installation and beyond, and I derive great personal satisfaction from seeing a client’s relationship with an authentically conceived and executed sculpture evolve over time.

This is why I love involving the art buyer in the creative journey, from conception to production through to installation and maintenance, and I am heartened when clients recognize aspects of themselves in my work, because I sense that through engaging with the sculpture they are cultivating an enhanced appreciation of who they are.

In creating sculptures that will become legacies, I ensure that the art buyer’s identity is acknowledged in the process, and to honor their relationship to a work I use high grade materials and ensure that the finish and the finer details are brought to the highest degree of perfection. I know I have succeeded when my work becomes a legacy for the client.

My driving mission and purpose in life has developed as a result of a history of personal experiences reaching back to my early years. During primary and secondary school, I found myself feeling very under realised. I felt restricted by the need to conform to a system of learning in which affirmation and reward were linked to getting answers right or wrong. To succeed you needed to behave, to study diligently, to memorise facts and figures and at the appropriate time regurgitate the required information. Such was the system that was used to determine my level of intelligence.

In a young and impressionable mind, this approach not only encouraged a fear of getting the answer wrong, it also reinforced the erroneous idea that there is only one right answer. The idea of teaching creatively remained outside of this system. A creative approach to teaching, within which options are explored and no one answer is definitively right or wrong, an approach which allows for the existence of a variety of lateral possibilities and solutions to discover, would certainly have been more in line with my needs. Only slowly did I come to understand that the system being used to determine my intelligence was woefully inadequate. Others, I would later learn, had come to similar conclusions.

Albert Einstein wrote that ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge’, and he also observed that ‘Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new’. Would Thomas Edison, for example, have perfected the light bulb if he had not made 1000 unsuccessful attempts? Instead he saw the invention of the light bulb as a highly creative 1000 step process.
Sir Ken Robinson, in a TED Talk called ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ that has clocked over 44 million views, helped to further validate what I have felt my whole life. According to Sir Ken ‘the schooling system teaches us out of creativity’. Looking back I can see that this was one of the main issues I struggled with as a child.

Through the school system, children are taught to be motivated to achieve high grades with the solitary goal of attaining entry to a tertiary study program, in which they will jump through more hoops based on the same motivation and merit system. I have come to understand that the schooling system predominantly explores and rewards only one type of intelligence. As a result much talent and potential remains under realised, and when the personal strengths of students go unacknowledged problems inevitably ensue.

As my abilities were not being recognised within the school system, I was unable to explore and express myself. Feeling devalued in this way inhibited my ability to develop a true and open connection with myself and a strong sense of identity. I felt rejected, alone, stagnant and helpless. What difference could I make if I couldn’t contribute something of benefit. Internally however I was always bursting with energy and a desire to contribute somehow, and when energy and desire were refused an appropriate outlet, the result was a fidgety, difficult child who struggled to remain focused: symptoms commonly diagnosed as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).

Unfortunately my struggle to find my true self did not end when I graduated from high school. As my whole family (mum, dad and my older brother) had careers in the education system, it was difficult for them, conditioned as they were, to understand my relentless pursuit of creative endeavors, and it was almost impossible for them to see my creative pursuits as a legitimate career path. ‘You will never get a job doing that!’ I was informed. Only now do I appreciate that they had the best of intentions. How could they advise otherwise when they were from a system that ‘teaches us out of creativity’?
As Pablo Picasso once wrote, ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up’.

This observation is as relevant now as it was during Picasso’s lifetime. The nature of our education system poses some important questions. How can we survive our childhood? How can we retain creativity in our adult lives?
For only when our creative child is still alive in us can we live authentically in our identity. I am thankful to God that I survived the system and have been able to find my true calling.

For decades now creativity has been the back bone of my career. The creativity that is central to my practice both drives and nourishes me, and this in turn has created the kind of opportunities that are for me the most rewarding. My satisfaction comes through the joy I see in people when one of my sculptures helps them to find a connection, make a breakthrough or enlarge the boundaries of their own creative self. My satisfaction comes from seeing someone’s stories and values playing out within one of my sculptures, which is not only life giving to them, but also to the people around them.

So in essence my mission is to help people to reconnect through creativity with a greater sense of who they are.

Todd Stuart was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1970. Influenced from an early age by his father, a teacher of manual arts, Stuart spent much of his childhood in his father’s workshop. Guided by creativity and experimentation, Stuart soon developed a passion for conceiving, developing, and crafting across mediums.

After completing a Bachelor of Industrial Design at Curtin University in 1992, Stuart took a position as Creative Designer at Artifex Australia, where he created innovative ranges of upholstered commercial furniture, brought to fruition through hands-on involvement; this included the handcrafting of concepts in the workshop and the subsequent fashioning of proto-type proofs in three dimensions.

In 1994 Stuart founded Furniturhaus, a business focusing on the production of bespoke furniture for prominent Australian interior designers and architects. Awards from the Furniture Industry Association Australia for best design innovation crafted for leather upholstery soon followed.

Having been awarded a substantial commission in the Middle East in 2005, Stuart established a branch office in Dubai, where his ability to conceive, craft and deliver custom-designed, large-scale projects to the highest standards saw him steadily gain client confidence in countries across the region and beyond. It was in this setting Todd’s cross section of creativity, design & project management were recognised and was offered his first commissioning experience in sculpture. From that point on he was hooked on a sculpture career. Significant site-specific sculptures by Stuart can be found in the Ministry of Higher Education in Muscat, Oman and in 5-star hotels in both Dubai & Kuwait. He has also collaborated on a major multiple sculpture project for the Crown Prince Holiday Residence in Riyadh Saudi Arabia, and has up-scaled three major works for The Red Chamber restaurant in the World Trade Centre building in Beijing.

In addition, two of Stuart’s works have been acquired by high profile Melbourne businessman, philanthropist and art collector John Gandel AO, one of which has been installed in Point Leo Estate Sculpture Park, Mornington Peninsula. Another graces the grounds of Melbourne’s Camberwell Grammar, while ‘Corroboree Dance’, a sculpture created collaboratively with First Nations artist Walangari Karntawarra, has been acquired by Metricon Director Ross

Palazzesi. His latest large public sculpture ‘Summit of Manhattan’ can be viewed outside the Summit residential apartment complex at 222 E 44th Street, Manhattan. A second monumental edition (’Summit of Guangzhou’) is nearing completion and to be installed as a land marking statement for TIC Developments Guangzhou, Guangdong Province China.

Active both internationally and at home, in 2012 Stuart won his first award from the Association of Sculptors Victoria for a work cast in bronze. He has gone on to win 9 additional awards from the association. Stuart also won the Dame Elisabeth Murdoch award at the Yarra Valley Arts / Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition 2016 and been a multiple finalist in notable sculpture competitions such as Montalto Prize, Deakin University Art gallery, Contemporary Small Sculpture Award Sculpture for Stuart involves creatively exploring worthy ideas and giving these ideas lasting material expression, all the while assiduously honoring a client’s connection to a work. The experience of the art buyer is of first importance for Stuart, as their ongoing harmonious experience of an artwork will help to ensure that the work achieves its fullest potential into the future.

Stuart’s arts practice, informed as it is by industrial design principles, has consistently combined an understanding and appreciation of aesthetics with an applied mastery of medium gleaned from years of industrial design experience. In addition to his arts practice, Stuart is employed regularly as a public sculpture production manager and also works as curator in support of a cohort of other talented sculptors for the online sculpture gallery - Mainartery. In this position he has been involved in installing sculpture exhibitions in blue chip properties across Melbourne.

Stuart currently resides in Melbourne, Australia, where he puts his experience as an industrial designer, public sculpture production manager and curator behind the creation of highly finished sculptural works. The result is sculpture expertly fashioned from high grade materials through which creative ideas can flow with rhythmic grace. In Stuart’s work, beauty and longevity combine in the creation of sculpture that will endure as a legacy for generations.