works — Jason Waterhouse

Slump, 2025

With finesse and impeccable craftsmanship, Jason Waterhouse’s sculptures manipulate elements of nature through the hybridisation of material and form. By creating seemingly impossible outcomes, Waterhouse has created a body of work that intentionally plays with perception and suspends order.

In Slump, Waterhouse’s sculptures present contradictions that create uncertainties between the actual and the manufactured. He has manipulated form and material potentials into impossible states, intentionally playing with perception and the natural order of things. Through all these inverted norms, the works convey a sense of struggle and relief, negotiating a tension and emotion that is subtly yet profoundly suggested.

The unsurmountable weight of every little thing, 2023

Solo Exhibition
OIGÅLL PROJECTS

Calibrating tension and weight with finesse and fragility, Jason Waterhouse's refined, playfully wrought sculptures are intricately moulded hybrid forms that possess intriguing contradictions.

Cast in bronze from natural materials, these finely detailed and seemingly delicate objects appear to suspend order, bending and crushing the solid supports and frames that hold their fine, sinuous forms.
Other sculptures defy gravity, their heft appearing to float with unexpected levity.

Throughout his practice, Waterhouse continuously explores the relationship between natural and manufactured objects. This intentional play with perception and objectivity repeats itself throughout Waterhouse's collection of meticulously crafted sculptures, a graceful mimicry achieved through an expert manipulation of form and materiality.
The resulting works express these contradictions, inverted norms and malleable qualities in a way that captures a sense of struggle and relief; negotiation with tension and emotion that suggests itself subtly but profoundly in these stunning contemporary sculptures.

Collective weight (Flame tree), 2023
bronze, mild steel
152 x 50 x 43 cm

Collective weight (Flame tree), 2023
(detail)
bronze, mild steel
152 x 50 x 43 cm

Every little, 2022
bronze
56 x 4 x 2 cm

Every little, 2022
(detail)
bronze
56 x 4 x 2 cm

Dead weight, 2023
bronze, mild steel
75 x 147 x 66 cm

Dead weight, 2023
(detail)
bronze, mild steel
75 x 147 x 66 cm

Flexing and malleable, 2023
bronze, brass, stainless steel pin
52 x 12 x 6 cm

Holding (Manna gum), 2023
bronze, acrylic paint, mild steel
96 x 156 x 15 cm

Holding (Manna gum), 2023
(detail)
bronze, acrylic paint, mild steel
96 x 156 x 15 cm

Nurturing a heavy nature, 2022
bronze, stainless steel pin
104 x 24 x 8 cm

Nurturing a heavy nature, 2022
(detail)
bronze, stainless steel pin
104 x 24 x 8 cm

Plant structure, 2022
bronze, stainless steel, mild steel table
77 x 20 x 13 cm, 178 x 30 x 30 cm (with table)

Plant structure, 2022
(detail)
bronze, stainless steel, mild steel table
77 x 20 x 13 cm

Support Systems, 2023
bronze, stainless steel
197 x 39 x 32 cm

Support Systems, 2023
(detail)
bronze, stainless steel
197 x 39 x 32 cm

Scales, 2023
bronze, brass, mild steel
130 x 120 x 12 cm

Scales, 2023
(detail)
bronze, brass, mild steel
130 x 120 x 12 cm

Taut branch, 2023
bronze, brass, stainless steel pins
71 x 10 x 3 cm

Weeping caesia, 2023
bronze, brass, mild steel
74 x 120 x 30 cm

Weeping caesia, 2023
(detail)
bronze, brass, mild steel
74 x 120 x 30 cm

Tenderweight, 2022
(detail)
bronze, stainless steel
45 x 90 x 6 cm

Tenderweight, 2022
bronze, stainless steel
45 x 90 x 6 cm

Held I, 2022
archival inkjet pigment print on Canson paper, edition of 5, framed
50 x 38 x 3 cm

Held II, 2022
archival inkjet pigment print on Canson paper, edition of 5, framed
50 x 38 x 3 cm

Held III, 2022
archival inkjet pigment print on Canson paper, edition of 5, framed
50 x 38 x 3 cm

Deceptions, 2019

Solo exhibition
Stockroom Kyneton

Over the last twenty years, Jason Waterhouse has been applying his malleable skills to public commissions, installation and drawing, articulating his poetic relationship to the world by warping and manipulating utilitarian objects. Advocating a non-elitist form of art making, Waterhouse thrives on altering spaces and objects through a strong craft sensibility combined with the Western idea of the ready-made.

In his latest exhibition Waterhouse has crafted an installation of six intimate objects connected through the theatrics and deception of material and space. With the works taking their starting point from his dual interests in the manufactured and the natural world, Deceptions darkly narrates open-ended uncertainty through trickery and illusion. Mimicking nature and tools, the works create a sense of unease and wonderment, enabling cinematic narratives that viewers are more likely to see in science-fiction films. Carved marble branches with crystalline forms, branches spawning supernatural growths, and carefully sculpted pieces of marble tenderly carved, blurring the lines between the fabricated and the found object. Working within this trajectory and using an assortment of personal and cultural signifiers, Deceptions psychologically engages the space between the known and the unknown.

Crystalline Branch, 2019
marble, acrylic paint
14 x 34 x 5 cm

Dad's Hammer, 2019
marble, acrylic paint
6 x 10 x 32 cm

Deceptions (installation image), 2019

Solo Exhibition, Stockroom, Kyneton