Nabilah Nordin, The Tie and the Undercoat, 2023

Nabilah Nordin is an Australian/Singaporean artist who has exhibited widely across Australia and the Asia Pacific region at major institutions, museums and biennales including Art Gallery of New South Wales, Neon Parc, Art Cologne, Museum of Modern Art, & Singapore Biennale.
Nabilah Nordin makes sculptures from a diverse range of materials to question the possibilities of formal abstraction. She uses improvised construction methods to build exaggerated forms, dramatizing the physicality of objects so that they appear to defy gravity or teeter on the edge of collapse.
The Tie and the Undercoat is a major new bronze and aluminium sculpture for the Australian Embassy in Washington DC, which plays on representations of the figure through a loose congregation of abstract forms. Using a haphazard construction method, Nordin combines a range of misshapen objects, such as table legs, doorknobs, and coat racks. These are covered in epoxy-modelling compound, creating an entanglement of platforms and twisting hooks. The addition of a walking stick animates the sculpture with a sense of caricature - it becomes loosely figurative. This is part of Nordin’s ongoing interest in imbuing inanimate materials with exaggerated human characteristics using found objects, such as wigs, lace stockings and balloons.
Artwork: The Tie and the Undercoat, 2023 (painted cast bronze & aluminium) ©Nabilah Nordin. Courtesy of the artist
This artwork commission was supported by Art Makers, Neon Parc & Agency Projects. Video created by UAP.