Australian artist Sophie Dumaresq chats to us about exhibiting her work Punk, Romantic at Sculpture by the Sea in Bondi, photographing French punk bands, connection to place and much more in our interview, which you can read below.
Hi Sophie, you exhibited your work Punk, Romantic at Sculpture by the Sea this year. Tell us about this sculpture?
Punk Romantic is “An artists love letter to the cow from the saying that you’re more likely to be killed by a cow than a shark”. The sculpture is made up of a pink and gold windmill connected to that of a larger than life cow skull and mechanical jaw. The blue, pink and gold in the work is inspired by the light and colours of the surf at sunset. The work is handmade by me with help from my Dad and my friend Dan. The work is a tribute to the absurd beauty of the landscape and what it is to try and work and find balance within it without giving up. The work was made possible by the Clitheroe foundation and their emerging sculpture mentor program and scholarship with Bondi Sculpture by the Sea. As well as a material sponsorship with Sell and Parker.
How long have you been making sculptures?
Around 7 years. It started with me being good at creating sets/props and staged environments for photography while working studios and then it grew until I decided to go back to school to officially reskill.
What was your creative process for this piece?
This piece is part of a larger Punk, Romantic body of work. It is the first large scale public art iteration of Punk, Romantic. The first iteration of the work was an exhibition of documentation of a performance where I attempted to balance on a unicycle that powered a mechanical cow skull exo skeleton mechanism above me. The performance took place on a rock shelf during sunset/sunrise.
During the performance in my hand I have a remote control to control the cameras shutter. The performance and the process of its documentation was a collaboration between my body (and also the good will and love of my friends Emma and Bridget), the mechanics of the exo skeleton kinetic sculpture, the unicycle and the landscape. As I peddled forward or backwards the jaw of the exoskeleton would move but if I moved too much or too fast I would fall and or go off the edge of the rock shelf and into the ocean. My friend Emma was waiting on standby in a life jacket to pull us out.
My friend Bridget at the begining of each attempt would stand beside me and let me use her shoulder to lift my self up with the extra weight of the kinetic artwork on my shoulders. On the count of three Bridget would sprint out of the frame of the shot and id try to balance long enough to take photographs. The performance is called “The Punk Rock Idle” and is a play on the two words Idol and Idle. It is about the sublime and the inability to capture the full beauty/truth of any moment and or landscape in a single image while paying tribute to the fact that there is something wonderful in our need to try anyway. Punk, Romantic was the name of my debut solo exhibition as an artist that took place at the end of last year at Canberra Contemporary, Platform. The exhibition was made up of the unicycle and the exoskeleton kinetic sculpture as well as various documentation of the performance.
Both Punk, Romantic works were inspired by walking along and looking out at the ocean on the rockshelf I performed the first iteration here on Australia’s east coast on Yuin country. Some of my first memories as small child are of my Dad pushing me as fast as he could in a pram on that same rockshelf to my screams of joy. I was also very lucky for this iteration of the artwork to have the opportunity to work with my Dad on it. He helped me drill a lot of the holes for the bolts in what we call “the engine”; the angle iron structure that holds everything together including two axles and bearings.
What does having your artwork exhibited at Sculpture by the Sea mean to you?
It means a lot to me. The festival is such an iconic staple of the arts both nationally as well as internationally. It is very surreal. It is one of those festivals that ive been following for my entire life and part of me still doesn’t full accept that I am actually in it.
What reactions were you expecting/hoping for from Punk, Romantic?
Curiosity and or joy are the kinds of reactions I would like. I know when making any artwork that there will be some people who simply hate it and or will not understand it.
While visiting the sculpture to take some photos during sunset I got to witness several children engaging with the work. One little girl told her Dad “that one is cool” within in earshot not knowing I was the artist. It felt like a full circle moment for me because of how my own Dad was part of both the process of the work coming together and the inspiration behind it. Getting to see another father and daughter duo engage with the work even briefly through an offhand remark was incredibly rewarding. A little boy made his entire family take a photo with the sculpture during sunset while I was there, which also made me smile.
The title Punk, Romantic evokes a contrast or hybrid of two registers: punk (raw, defiant) and romantic (emotive, perhaps nostalgic). How does that tension play out in the work and in the landscape at Bondi?
The name Punk, Romantic came in part from a conversation with artist friends about the concept of whether the Romantic Painters could have been the first “Punks” because they rebelled by turning towards the landscape during the industrial revolution.
I see this in the work reflected through the rapid advancements in technology we are currently experiencing that in some ways are making us become numb and indifferent to what is happening in the world including the environmental costs and the cost of the lives of the people who those technological advancements come at the expense of. The tension came from wanting to make a work that looks at what it is to try and balance working with the good and against the bad within the environment you find your self without coming to a complete stop and burning out. I find that once you embrace the absurdity of a moment/situation/landscape that’s when you find the beauty in it and the energy to keep going.
I think this tension plays out in that Bondi is still is part of a city of people from all different kinds of life and cultures, as well as the land itself having its own agency and personality. With the changes in the climate and extreme weather events, we are seeing more and more evidence of the landscape itself seemingly trying to communicate with us.
Since the piece is kinetic and interacts with an ocean-site, how did you consider the elements of place (wind, waves, sunlight, tide) in your design and installation?
Punk, Romantic for Bondi is my first large scale work I have created without the purpose of then performing with the work. Both of my large scale shark artwork and the first Punk, Romantic need my body to become activated as an artwork. I knew I would have to leave this Punk, Romantic alone in the landscape. I decided to hand paint it with phosphorous paint because I wanted to make sure even at night it could see/feel the trace/warmth of my touch and energy through the stored up sunlight that would shine over those traces of my hands during the day.
When I first arrived at my site visit at Bondi, I was starstruck by the landscape and fell in love with how rowdy the surf was on a windy day. The pink and gold wind turbine or “hair” and or “ears” are inspired by the idea of hair blowing in the wind while standing on a rockshelf looking out over the ocean like in a Romantic painting. The work has the option of being kinetic. In the “engine” there are two axles and bearings, if unlocked the veins of the wind turbine would turn and power the chewing mechanism of the jaw. For this iteration and for festival it was decided to not go in this direction because of factors like public safety and the wild weather that we have been experiencing this year. One day I would love to do another iteration where the wind powers the jaw chewing mechanism but I also believe in listening to the landscape when it is trying to communicate something to you.
This iteration of Punk Romantic for Bondi is different in several ways from the first. One is that I chose to add gold to it after having the opportunity to witness a sunset at Bondi. Bondi has a special shade of golden light that falls over it during sunset. Both iterations of the artworks contain reclaimed recycled metal as well as hand recycled ocean plastics. My choice to use these materials is rooted in working with the environment found around you.
Have you always been creative?
Yes, growing up even before I could talk I was dancing, drawing and or mashing mud together with sticks and flowers in the backyard or in a paddock somewhere.
You lived and worked in France for 7 years. Tell us about that. Where? How it came about? What you were doing?
My first memories of being in France are from when I was around 11 and we were over there for my parents work in Paris and then in Marseille. I remember being lightly teased by other children for being Australian because Kangos, which is a French cartoon about a team of basketball playing Kangaroos. I was also obsessed with this cartoon because it was something that was both Australian and French. Both my parents like me, are born here in Australia but my last name is French because my Dads family was first from the north near Normandy.
Whenever I am in Normandy, especially on a windy beach I am reminded of what First Nation Australian people say when they talk about their connection to country here in Australia. Through encouragement from my Dad and my aunts I applied to a photography school in Paris. I was incredibly privileged and lucky to be accepted and then again privileged and lucky to be able to go through family support that then ended in me studying and working in commercial advertising and fashion photography in Paris.
In addition to your sculpture work, you’re a photographer and have photographed a lot of French punk bands. You also work regularly with some French friends. What do you work on together and how do you collaborate with such a huge distance between you?
At the moment I am working on a collaboration with Rabih Gebeile who is an amazing musician, artist and all around human being. I first photographed him in Paris, where we were both living at the time while he performed with his band Backbone Party. You can find their song Nickel and Dime on the soundtrack of the film The Sea Ahead by Ely Dagher. He also did the sound track of the amazing 2025 film Dead Dog by Sarah Francis. His current project Sūr @sound_of_sur on instagram is also amazing.
We have been following each since on social media. As much evil as social media has created it has also helped create and maintain a lot of amazing connections and one of them for me is this one. With the return of the bombing in the South of Lebanon I reached out to Rabih. The week I was installing Punk, Romantic at Bondi also happened to be a week that bombing recommenced in the south of Lebanon and also while Rabih was in Lebanon trying to visit the graves of his family members in the South after being unable previously to visit due to the war last year.
We’re now working together on a special edition of my animatronic shark and performance based artwork “Beached as Bro…(I love you)”. The artwork is an endurance performance of me performing inside of the almost 7 meters long animatronic hand made shark whose nickname is “Sweetie Pie.”
During the performance the Shark attempts to move and sing along to songs by the Beach boys most notably that of “Don’t worry Baby.”
As part of a fundraising effort for Canberra Contemporary, I have been developing a special edition of prints and t-shirts from still images of this performance work staged in front of the lake and National War Memorial in Canberra, where the lakeside Canberra Contemporary gallery space is also located.
This summer accompanying the release of the prints and t-shirts for the Canberra Contemporary fundraiser will also be a special live performance and recording of “Beached as Bro…(I love you)” in front of the war memorial featuring Rabihs recorded cover of the song “Don’t Worry Baby”.
How did your time in France influence your artistic sensibility, especially in terms of your interest in punk culture and photography?
France is the home of the Romantics, the French Revolution as well the invention of photography. My artistic practice often addresses and refers to the Romantic concept of the Sublime. Sublime was the first word that popped up in my mind when asked this question. It is something I can’t quite fully capture just like that of the sublime. There are lots of things I do not always agree with when it comes to the politics of France like any nation but I will never not respect and or stop admiring their dedication to the arts and their bravery and willingness to risk everything for the freedom of expression and the right to protest.
You initially began photographing French punk bands — what drew you to that scene, and how did being in a foreign country shape your perspective on it?
When I first got to Paris as a teenager and young adult in the 2010s I was just blown away by the underground diy art and music scene. At night I would go out and photograph it as much of it as possible. When I moved to Paris I was lucky to get there while there were still squat houses still within the city limits that I could get into to photograph both local and visiting punk bands. One of the most iconic is the now closed La Miroiterie on rue Ménilmontant.
When you photograph punk bands (particularly in France), what are you trying to capture beyond the image — attitude, energy, community? How do you bring that into your current sculptural/ installation work?
I can see that I was always drawn to how bodies move and are shaped within a space in relation to light and other bodies/objects around them. I was attracted to Punk culture and music because I admired the confidence of the energy of the performers and their ability to take a stand and to passionately without shame talk about making the world a better place.
The word photography translated is to write with light, and light is energy and I still feel I feel am writing and creating with light/energy within my current sculpture and installation artworks. For me the process of using my hands to create is important because I think physical touch can transfer energy. An example for instance is earlier when I mentioned my decision to make the work store sunlight to then glow in the dark showing the traces of my hands on this edition of Punk, Romantic for Bondi.
You describe your work as combining robotics, automata, humour, absurdity and materiality. Could you talk about how your early photography and punk-culture experiences led into the more mechanical/installation side of your practice?
A lot of punk culture is DIY (Do it your self) and about the idea of creating/joining communities where you have to work together, share knowledge and support one another in order to get things done. I think it helped me to see myself very early on as only a tiny part within another part that’s part of system within another system that’s part of an even bigger system. My shift from photography to robotic and mechanical lead sculpture/installation to me felt natural because the mirror is considered to be the first machine because it was created to show us ourselves but is not one of us. A camera can also be a machine.
What advice would you give to emerging artists who want to combine performance, sculpture, mechanics and environmental concerns?
Reach out and join community no matter how cringe it feels at first. If possible find a mentor and or other artists doing similar things to talk to. When things feel too much that doesn’t mean you should give up, it just maybe means you need a hug, a chat and or a good eight hours sleep.
I’ve never received a single message from another artist/friend reaching out wanting to talk about something that didn’t make part of me want to hug them and to talk things through with them. Ive also been incredibly lucky to have people do the same for me. If someone is rude and or unpleasant, it is to do with them and not you so just keep reaching out.
If you could have one punk-band soundtrack live-scoring your Bondi installation, what would it be and why?
Oh this is a hard one to answer. For the first Punk, Romantic, the performance I did on the rock shelf with the unicycle I was listening to the song Hertz by the Iconic Australian Punk Band Amyl and the Sniffers just on repeat. I was so obsessed I even ended up writing the lyrics to Hertz as secret messages with kisses only visible under a blacklight on some of the photographic prints in the first Punk, Romantic exhibition.
For Bondi I think it is “Punkrocker” featuring Iggy Pop by the Teddy Bears that went viral from the soundtrack of the recent superman film. Because I don’t usually like super hero movies but after seing some of the reviews being shared about it, I made myself watch it and then actually liked it. The last few years have been incredibly bleak in terms of keeping up to date with the news. Watching this film gave me some hope about the future and the direction of popular culture. The song was also stuck in my head for a lot of the time while I was creating Punk, Romantic for Bondi. It was on the playlist I listened to as I drove the work to Bondi for install.
Anything else you would like to add?
Fund the arts instead of manufacturing more weapons for wars that our planet is already telling us it won’t be able to support us through.
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We thank Sophie Dumaresq for this interview and look forward to seeing her works in the future.
You may also like to read our interviews with past Sculpture by the Sea artists:
French artist Denis Defrancesco presents his gigantic work KingKongBalls XXL at Sculpture by the Sea
French artist Robin Godde presents his work “Parenthèses” at Sculpture by the Sea
