Well-travelled artist Michael McFalls ranks his recent residency at ANU as one of his favourites.

Michael has been to many art schools all over the world, and says that the strong community at ANU is what made this visit exceptional.

“The students here are interested, curious and engaged, and I couldn’t have completed my work without the help of the staff here,” says Michael.

Michael, a Professor of Art at Columbus State University in Georgia, visited the School of Art as a guest of the Sculpture Workshop. He headed back to his hometown of Columbus in the US in September, after a whirlwind six weeks in Australia.

Staying in the apartments above the School, Michael says he enjoyed the time to be completely immersed in his work and get out of his comfort zone.

While in Canberra, Michael skipped visiting Australia’s major cities and instead headed inland to Central Australia, which he describes in his Southern accent as “a whole lotta nothing”.

“The US landscape is much more vertical, with mountains and canyons. Even in the big deserts you can see mountains in the distance. The Australian desert is just vast, flat openness.”

Students and staff from the School of Art help install the work

This experience of the Australian landscape, so different to his home country, was a major influence on the work he exhibited in the School of Art’s Foyer Gallery. The show incorporated 18 works of art including sculptures, drawings, and videos.

Michael’s work more broadly investigates concepts of place and landscape, and cultural influences on the way landscapes and aesthetics are perceived in society.

One of the main pieces in Michael’s show was A Frontier, New and Final – a huge tree trunk covered in red earth, which Michael worked on with students from the Sculpture Workshop. He also worked closely with School staff Jean-Philippe Demarais and Nick Stranks during his visit.

The earth-covered tree was dotted with small figurine spacemen cast perfectly in bronze and referenced America’s endeavours into outer space during the Cold War. Most of Michael’s work weaves in references to American history and literature.

This piece, and in particular the use of red earth was, Michael says, “an intuitive response to the Australian landscape”.

Close up on one of the spacemen in A Frontier, New and Final

Michael’s visit to ANU came about fortuitously after he struck up a conversation with head of the Sculpture Workshop Wendy Teakel at an international sculpture conference in Chicago last year. 

While he’s not sure yet how his experience in Canberra will influence his work overall, Michael says he thinks the “residue” from the experience will influence his future work.

Wendy will travel to Columbus State University later in the year to complete a reciprocal artist in residency stay.