Kevin Perkins - Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery: Written in Wood: Kevin Perkins inspired by Richard Flanagan

Five monumental sculptural works by Tasmanian artist, master furniture-maker and wood craftsman, Kevin Perkins, each based on a novel by the acclaimed Tasmanian writer, Richard Flanagan.

Perkins and Flanagan are both Tasmanian by birth and are long- standing friends. Their work in their respective disciplines, is deeply rooted in this island and their knowledge of its landscapes and its histories. For this suite of works, Perkins has selected what he sees as the author’s most ‘Tasmanian’ works;  Death of a River Guide (1994), The Sound of One Hand Clapping (1997), Gould’s Book of Fish (2001), Wanting (2008), and his most recent work, Question 7 (2023).

Read Richard Flanagan's exhibition opening speech - TMAG, 5.12.24

In Tasmania some simply call him the Master, a consequence of both a body of work seen to be peerless and a lifetime of teaching that has inspired many. His reputation reaches far from his island home and his influence beyond the parameters of the timber furniture with which he made his name. So coveted is his work that American buyers fly by chartered jet to Tasmania simply to meet the maker.

In consequence, he has exhibited rarely and his name - with the exception of collectors and makers - is nowhere as well known as it should be. Yet he is one of the few great artists Tasmania produced in the twentieth century. His work has borne witness to much that is wrong, more that is lost, yet at their finest, his elegies for a vanishing place and time transcended their own concerns to become objects of an often astonishing beauty.

- Richard Flanagan, Object Magazine, issue 58

Read review in Australian Wood magazine here