REBECCA WARREN

Crude and rude, Warren's sculptures hold the same grotesque (and often funny) fascination as aboriginal fetishes (or by modern standards perhaps triple-F supermum Jordan!). Their 'half-finished' appearance is a minimalist tactic: providing only the bare essentials of an image; editing out all but the absolutely necessary information, providing the imaginary space for the viewer to dream up the rest.

Rebecca Warren's sculptures bring a whole new meaning to the term "Earth Mother".  Her women are like humungous primal fertility totems for the urban tribes of today. Big boobs, and big butts, dread locks and mini-skirts: being a babe is just an Amazonian side-effect of their self-control and empowerment.

Larger than life, Warren's sculptures are girl-next-door superheroes: barbaric and strong, protecting and kind, energetic and bold: icons of the ideal 'every woman' taken to the extreme.

Figures of fantasy emulation, Warren's sculptures make successes of their 'short-comings': malformed hands, or slight weight problem are things to be celebrated; and their shoes are always amazing. Warren's women are ravishing just the way they are. If their confident, over-the-top sexuality seems a little dirty, that's because it is -- literally. They're entirely made of clay.

Inventing a race of superwomen is a process of immediacy. Starting with a skeletal support structure, Warren builds up her sculptures with an almost impressionistic fervour, physically beating and shaping mounds of clay into an extension of her imagination, working against the clock before the material hardens.

From the start, Warren's sculptures are designed for speed. Mounted on castered boards, Warren's uber-frauen glide like primadonnas, skate like perennial students, and race like businesswomen.

It's an aesthetic reminiscent of artists such as Rodin and Boccioni. But with a contemporary twist: Their caricaturish portrayals owe as much to comic book legends such as Robert Crumb and those naughty 70s Penthouse cartoons.

Warren plays with these ideals of male fantasy and representation, and re-incorporates their exaggeration and slap&tickle humour into a perversion and triumph all her own.

Their plinths are integral extensions of their personalities -- as well as being an excellent ergonomic device for moving them about her studio. Everything about her work reveals, and draws the viewer into, the process of making.

Rebecca Warren’s sculpture shows off the process as making.  Emerging from the half-hewed mud, Warren’s work makes illicit suggestions of nude figures and entwined couples, reminiscent of mojo-lamps and head shop knick-knacks. Warren serves up a feminist brand of macho-ism with an unlikely combination of classical Rodin vs. Jeff Koons.