Orest Keywan, With a View, Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 1999. Photo Clyde Yee.
Born in Marienbad, on the Czech German border, Keywan studied with Lyndon Dadswell. His sculpture is set apart by a careful consideration of the interaction between viewer and sculpture, an elegant linearity and a unique engagement of space. Art critic John McDonald, previously commented in the Sydney Morning Herald that ‘all of Keywan’s works may be seen as a conversation between opposing quantities and qualities. Line is pitted against mass, steel or aluminium against wood or plastic’.
Of Sculpture by the Sea, Orest writes:
“It’s the openness of Sculpture by the Sea that attracts me most. The physical openness of the settings, the openness to size and scale, the openness to all styles of sculpture, and the openness – which translates as approachability – to the more than a million individual perceptions focused on the shows at Bondi, Cottesloe and Aarhus.
Keywan is represented nationally and internationally in public and private collections, including Orange Regional Gallery, Sir Hermann Black Gallery, Sydney and Masfjord, Norway. He has exhibited numerous times at Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi and Cottesloe and Sculpture by the Sea Aarhus in 2009, 2011 and 2013. He has received prizes including Sydney Water Sculpture prize Sculpture by the Sea Bondi 1999, Art Gallery of New South Wales Award Sculpture by the Sea Bondi 2004, and NAB Sculpture Prize Sculpture by the Sea Bondi 2006. He received the prestigious Helen Lempriere Scholarship at Sculpture by the Sea in 2015.”
