ALAN CONSTABLE
b. 1956, Melborne
Lives and works in Melboenr, Australia
Alan Constable's singular sculptures of cameras, telescopes, projectors, and binoculars are imbued with a heightened tactility and inner life. Legally blind and deaf, Constable is renowned for his ceramic cameras that reflect his life-long fascination with old cameras, when he began constructing replicas of cameras from cereal cartons and glue at the age of eight. At the studio Constable holds research images or source objects millimetres from his face, committing the form to memory by tracing the surface with his fingertips. Every protrusion, button, and lens of a specific camera model is faithfully captured in intricate detail, down to tiny scrawled lines and letters. Form and perspectives shift and Constable's re-interpretations become at times anthropomorphic vessels and totems.
Curator Matthew Higgs stated that "Constable, who is legally blind, makes incredible ceramic sculptures of cameras, which should, in my opinion, be in every major museum collection."