Miguel Olmo

Born 1973, Valencia, Spain
Bachelor of Visual Arts
Graduation show: 1994
Graduation ceremony: 1999
   

Artwork in Space YZ 
 
Untitled, 1994 
Computer animation on SVHS tape, digitised in 2020 
5:15 mins


In 1991 as I was finishing high school and getting ready to commence my Bachelor of Visual Arts, Ms S. Choy, a substitute visual arts teacher at my school, who also happened to have graduated from the University of Western Sydney said to me that my work would change once I was at uni. Naively and with an unwarranted degree of arrogance I replied that I did not want anyone to force me to change my art and that I would not let that happen. 

Six weeks into first year, I dug a hole behind Z block at Kingswood and I ceremoniously buried all the works I had made at uni up to that point. From then on I abandoned painting, which I did not return to until many years later and instead I picked up video and photographic cameras and shifted my interests towards sculpture, installation and digital media.

Influenced by the first assignment we received in Foundation Studies taught by Terry Hayes and Rhett Brewer, the themes in my work also changed and I stopped making paintings of an overtly political nature and started to make works that were more conceptual and personal. Working through the task titled ‘Third Place’ that asked us to consider two disparate starting points in order to arrive at a creative third point, I started to look deeply into the hip hop subculture and its visual manifestation of graffiti and my own cultural heritage. This exercise culminated in the end of the first year exhibition Air Drawn Dagger at Casula Powerhouse.

The landfill adjacent to the university (now the hockey fields) and the creek were a rich source of materials for me. In the second semester of first year, Jacqueline Clayton and Charlie Mifsud taught me to process clay that I sourced from the creek. I was also always on the lookout for trucks bringing loads of building materials from demolitions that I would scavenge to create sculptures from. On one pick, I got enough wire to make sculptures for the next three years. As a cash-strapped young student, sourcing the materials for my works by either salvaging or processing the natural product, not only provided the much needed materia prima, but it also formed the foundation for much of my philosophical stance on the importance of creating circular and sustainable economies and processes. 

Derek Kreckler once said to me that after you leave university, the only thing you have are your ideas, and your ideas alone should be able to stand up on their own legs. This nugget of wisdom, did not really reveal itself until I finished my studies, when the darkrooms, computers, wood and metal fabrication workshops, ceramics studios and video editing suites that I so keenly made use of during my studies, were no longer available to me. The ease in which I could move from one workshop space to another was a testament to the work and dedication of the lecturers and technical staff. Lecturers like Peter Charuk, who always supported my work and encouraged me to explore ideas and techniques beyond the confines of my electives. Or Eugenia Raskopoulos, who always pushed us to question the why rather than just the how. I remember having heated discussions with Eugenia during critique. Knowing that your work was going to be deeply scrutinised, helped me to not only reflect on the reasons for making the work, but also develop skills to talk about it and be confident in my reasoning. Or technical staff like Nick Dorrer who was always keen to teach me how to use the equipment, make suggestions on ways to fabricate the work and make room in the workshops for my ambitious sculptural constructions.

First year of university changed my life. Not only did it expand my world-view exponentially, it was also the place where I met Julie Narline, who will later become my wife and mother of my children. I have very fond memories of my time at the University of Western Sydney, where everything was possible, because frankly, there were few to no barriers. There was a spirit of complete possibility supported by an ethos of experimentation. It is perhaps because of those fond memories that I felt really gutted when I heard that the University was terminating the arts program. In October 2008 I was attending a work-related meeting at the university, after which, I decided to visit Z block. To my surprise, the hub of activity that I remembered was all but gone. There were no rows and rows of art-filled studios, there was no chatter, no music emanating from students’ radios, no machine noises coming from the workshops. In fact there were no students, or staff. It took a good 20 minutes before I came across another person. Charlie Mifsud was the only person in the whole building. At a time when students would have been frantically completing their works in preparation for final assessments and presentations, there was just an empty, lifeless building. Charlie informed me of the axing of the faculties, of the volunteer redundancies, and of the fate of what to me seemed like a much needed and much loved art school.

The video presented in the exhibition was part of my graduating exhibition work. It is one of the very few works that survive or I have access to from that time. The video was part of a six-screen installation that also had sculptural elements. The six screens were presented on plinths behind a welded metal screen that spelt out the text "What seems like an uncontrollable epidemic is taking over our cities. No longer is the public safe from this perversion that pollutes our morals." 

The work is peppered with various themes and influences including the work of Jenny Holzer, Maria Kozic and Peter Callas. It touches on themes regarding the commodification of art, the commercialisation and marketable packaging of youth culture and the war of attrition that at the time, the State Government/State Rail Authority and graffiti writers seemed to have been locked in where each side was determined to have the last ‘mark’. 

At the time I wrote of the work: “It is apparent to me that the work is becoming more and more autobiographical. The conflict that I was looking at rather than be a conflict between mainstream and subculture it’s becoming a conflict between me and my position to the above mentioned, that is mainstream or marginal. As the work has progressed my position has gradually moved from inclinations towards the subculture to a neutral base. Now I find myself sitting on the fence.”

The work was subsequently shown at the Mary Alice Evatt Award exhibition at the newly opened Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre.

In recent years, I have revisited some of the works that I created over 25 years ago while at UWS. This reassessment of my earlier works started when I was preparing for a solo show which I titled Tomorrows Yesterdays | Yesterdays Tomorrows. Taking as its point of departure a small sculpture that I made in 1993 or 1994 and which appears in the video, the exhibition looked at time and memory, and in a similar fashion to the sculptures that I was making during my undergraduate studies, it utilises reclaimed paper and wood materials.

Learn more about Miguel Olmo via his website and Instagram.