Paul White

Born 1976, Parramatta, New South Wales

Paul White uses everyday materials in his sculptural installations. Some objects are purchased, but the majority are found. A bric–a–brac of society's detritus – old plastic toys, blankets, lino – he abandoned, leftover and waste are re–cycled in his work, with a strong formal aesthetic sense governing this reinvestment.

In Detour the choice of materials is the magneto firing the conceptual idea behind the work. A ladder with missing rungs stretches from floor to ceiling, a length of white pvc plumbing pipe sprouts a dangerous bouquet of electrical wiring, feeding bulbs made from the bodies of plastic toys, the synthetic colours emanating a noxious sickly glow. Nearby a striped road barrier is propped a–kilter. Reflecting on the construction of the individual within a conformist social system, the structures which attempt to corral, direct and monitor our progress (the ladders, the barriers, the lit ways) are rendered dysfunctional. With wires exposed, the sinister aspect of the circuitry or system is revealed: shoddy facture and questionable ends.

Robyn McKenzie from her Samstag catalogue essay, Art and Research
 
2001 Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship
2001 MFA, California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, USA
1997 Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours), University of Western Sydney - Nepean, Sydney 
1996 Bachelor of Visual Arts, University of Western Sydney - Nepean, Sydney

Artist's website
http://www.paulwhiteart.com/