Knot (aka ‘The Knitting Woman’) 2001

Summary

Kyneton-based artist Peter D Cole has been long creating his mainly metal sculptures for both exhibition and commission. The influences of modernism and particular European artists and traditions are evident in his work, but it is in no way derivative. Many of Cole's pieces have been described as landscape sculptures for their connection with the Australian terrain. But here nature is expressed through the artist's robust symbolic language of form and colour. Bold shapes, planes, lines and volumes in strong primary colours intersect to create complex geometric relationships between each work's constituent parts. The tone of Cole's sculptures often has a lightness of spirit, suffusing works with a certain humanity and even playfulness. 'The Knot', also known as the knitting woman, is a fine example of this. Given more than a quick glance, the figure of a knitter – a stitch between her imagined needles – emerges from the abstract steel and copper sculpture. It is an appealing work in brilliant red, the source of which is the artist's memories of his grandmother knitting and crocheting. The comparative material lightness of the knot at the work's centre brings levity to the heaviness of the sculpture's flat, solid geometric planes.