Who are you?

My name is Aaron Anderson. I’m an artist from New York (originally from Kansas) now living and working in Sydney.

How did you start making art?

I have been drawing since I was very young.   They were always completely terrible I think, but good enough to make it onto the refrigerator which I think was what gave me the confidence to keep going.

What do you like about it?

I’m not sure that “like” is always the right word. The ideas come, and if I don’t make them happen, they keep rattling around in there, so I really just need the manifestation of what is already a reality in my head.

But I guess I do like seeing the work completed and getting feedback. And I like some of the processes too.

What does art offer the world?

I think that challenging art is the catalyst for the growth of culture.

When you see something and it sparks your own imagination you can kind of piggy-back on an artist’s ideas or energy and then take some sort of action yourself. And so on and so on. Art can do that. Good art, anyway.

What does your art try to achieve?

Right now, one of my major goals is to make work with which a wide variety of people can engage, but do it without “dumbing down” the work in any way. I want the contemporary art community to be able to dig into it, but I want people form the general public to also have an entry point. That’s an idea that I have come to by simply assessing the art that I myself like to look at. I have come to believe that to be successful, for me, it needs to be accessible on different levels. Interesting to look at and then hopefully backed up by concept and content. Art that does one or the other always leaves me flat.

How did you get involved with ‘Sculpture by the Sea’?

I met Anne Zahalka while I was taking part in the residency program at Artspace in Wooloomooloo. We became friends and started to talk about making a piece for the exhibition. We actually didn’t think we would stand a chance of getting in because of the nature of our piece. But we put a proposal together and it was accepted.

Why did you choose that spot?

There were a few reasons. We were thinking about the overhangs for a completely different project. To me they are the most interesting part of the landscape there. Then we began to talk about the case of the man who had once made the cliffs overlooking Bondi his home.

As the idea progressed, we also started to think about the real estate market in Sydney and how everyone seems to want to get closer and closer to the water. This house is pretty close. We were wondering what people would sacrifice to live on that particular plot of land.

What was the process for building your sculpture like?

First we just went to the site and looked things over, trying to decide what shape would fit. The space dictated the design, really. Then there were lots of sketches and measurements. We made two early trips out to Bondi with parts of the sculpture, just as test runs and to have level sections off of which to get accurate measurements.

Then I built the piece almost entirely in my tiny studio. In the end, I had to crawl around it to move. It was absurd, and fit completely with the whole tiny house idea.

Finally we took it out to the site and spent about 6 days finishing it, outside and inside. Fitting the roofline into all the nooks and crannies was the biggest challenge.

How long did it take?

We proposed it in April. The actual building started in August. So about 3 months in the studio and 6 days onsite.

What does this sculpture say to people?

Different people have different reactions. I think everyone sees it as absurd, even if that is not how they themselves might describe it. But lots of people do recall the man living there a few years ago. And other people make the comment that they would like to live there, which is exactly what we are hoping they will contemplate.

But for some it is just a fun thing to see.

I did have one person ask if it was meant to say something about how we can build homes that work with the landscape. I see it as the opposite. We wanted to make a work that completely ignored the landscape. This house sees the rock as incidental and irrelevant. It is going to be there and no landscape is going to stand in its way. It’s meant to be obnoxious, which conflicts with the “cute” factor.

Are you proud of it?

Yes. I’m happy with how it turned out, and it was very nice to talk to all of the people as they passed through. It really gave me energy.

What next for you?

More of the same. I have a few shows set for next year, but mostly just a lot more work on proposals and applications. It’s not an easy thing, but hopefully I will be able to keep the ball rolling.

What’s the value of things like ‘Sculpture by the Sea’?

I have mixed feelings about shows like this.

The good part is that it brings out hordes of people who might not go to see any other art exhibitions throughout the year. But that is also the problem. Shows and art prizes like these don’t really aim to represent what is going on in the contemporary art world. They are dependent upon crowds and sales. So the downfall is that the work in these exhibitions often goes too far to the “for the masses” end of the spectrum and winds up not being relevant to what is happening in the grand scheme of contemporary art. High on visual impact and low on concept. Lots of big, red art. And the real problem is that, in the end, people begin to believe that these aesthetic issues are important and progressive. On the other side, shows that are confronting and challenging, the ones that really promote cultural growth, get marginalized and go largely unsupported. Or they never even happen at all.