Cardwell + McLachlan
Stuart McLachlan is regarded as one of the world's premier paper sculptors. Working from a foundation in graphic design and illustration, and after years spent between Adelaide, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver before settling in Sydney, he hand-cuts paper into intricate figures and architectures so finely rendered they take on a porcelain-like finish. Combined with stone, paint and found materials, these delicate constructions carry conceptually bold arguments about humanity's environmental impact, interrogating displacement, survival, and the fragile balance between progress and destruction. As McLachlan puts it, it is not enough for a piece to be pretty; it has to say something, and his sculptures characteristically hold an uneasy, quiet tension. His reach extends well beyond the gallery: commissions from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Disney+, Australia Post and the State Opera of South Australia, work published in The Economist, The New Yorker, Vogue and Newsweek, and inclusion in the definitive international surveys of paper art, from 'PaperCuts' to Luerzer's '200 Best Illustrators Worldwide'. He has been invited to participate in Homo Faber 2026: An Island of Light , the international celebration of contemporary craftsmanship, Venice, Italy, for its fourth edition this September. This exhibition is a curated selection of excellent artists and artworks from all over the world. Simon Cardwell is a photographer whose work moves between documentary precision and constructed fiction. Trained in Adelaide and in the Netherlands, where he completed photography degrees at the Academie St. Joost and the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten, Cardwell has built a practice recognised across three decades of solo and group exhibitions, from the Greenaway Art Gallery in the 1990s to recent finalist showings at the Museum of the Avant-garde in Switzerland, the Art Gemini Prize in London, and the Moran and Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert photography awards. His images are held in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and his commissioned public projects extend the work beyond the frame into civic space. ARTISTS' STATEMENT 'Extinction is often framed as an irreversible ending - a final consequence of human arrogance, extraction, and neglect. Yet within these histories exists a quieter, less acknowledged truth: humans also possess the capacity to repair, restore, and protect. This body of work explores that dynamic, documenting not only loss but the possibility of renewal. Through deliberate intervention, species once pushed to the brink have been brought back from near-erasure. When human attitudes shift from domination to stewardship, conservation becomes not an act of control but of collaboration. Approached with humility, patience, and long-term vision, humanity can influence the natural world in ways that are regenerative rather than destructive. This work is not about absolution - it does not erase loss, nor claim that human influence is always positive. It is about possibility. It asks viewers to reconsider humanity’s role - not as separate from nature, but as an active participant capable of both destruction and renewal. Through the American Bison, the Siberian Crane, the White-bellied Heron and the Arabian Oryx, this series celebrates species that have been given a second chance, inviting reflection on what it takes to allow life to return and endure.'
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