Elli Schlunke
Sculpture
Born: Melbourne, Victoria.
Resides: Sunshine Coast Hinterland.
Artist Information
Elli Schlunke is best known for her sculptures and especially for her bronzes.
She loves to celebrate the female form and the simple pleasures of life.
"I love the processes of art, the doing. I love working with bronze, which
is difficult, laborious, rewarding and above all terribly exciting. I cast
my bronzes in the gloriously low-tech backyard foundry at my studio where
I live, near Kenilworth. Bronze's great strength allows me to design forms
that would not really work in any other medium. So if it's a female figure,
she can dance on one tippytoe forever. The rocking horses really rock so
you can play with them, like an executive toy." After completing school,
Elli attained a Diploma of Art (Graphic Art) at the Royal Melbourne Institute
of Technology. She then followed a career in graphics and also privately
created a lot of paintings during the 1980s and started seriously sculpting
in the early 1990s. She helped to organize as well as participate in many
workshops and was captivated by the processes of bronze casting having learned
from such tutors as John Worth and Craig Medson. Concurrently, she continued
regular life-drawing and began to be in demand for various sculptural commissions.
Still driven to learn more, Elli studied for a Diploma in Advanced Ceramics
in 2000 at TAFE in Cooroy, Queensland. Her delightful sense of fun is shown
in many of her pieces like the "Chicken Dancer" series of uninhibited women
dancing to express their joy or the rocking horse series which has also
included "Bacon Roll"….a pig on rockers! However, the majority of her commissioned
works have been of larger proportions including such notable works as a
life-size bronze bust of Mary Mackillop for a Catholic Church and life-size
ciment fondu fisherman sculpture for the Wondai Shire Council in Queensland.
Her passion for creating is shown in the fact that most of her bronzes are
unique as opposed to editions, as she is always eager to explore a new idea
or theme. Elli has also worked in clay and ciment fondu to achieve quite
different results with some voluptuous female forms. Listing 9 solo exhibitions
and many group exhibitions during her career this far, Elli has also been
sought after as a teacher, creative sign-maker and for several years was
the curator for the sculpture section of the Maroochy Arts Festival. She
was the founding member of the Maroochy Sculptors' Group and has maintained
a commitment to the furtherance of art within the community with voluntary
hours on the Regional Arts Development Fund Committee, along with active
membership of both the Society of Sculptors, Queensland and the Queensland
Artworkers Alliance. She has completed over eighteen public and private
commissions and her works can be found in private collections across Australia,
New Zealand and the UK. Below are a selection of the artists work:
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