“Isolation offered its own form of companionship”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland

2023 marks 20 years since Linde Ivimey was launched into the annals of contemporary Australian art with a major solo exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne—the first of her career. Seemingly overnight, she was transformed from relative unknown to one of the country’s most collectible artists. 

Of course, no story of overnight success ever happens that easily, and the sudden acclaim Ivimey received oversimplified an art practice that had begun at Claremont College of Art, Perth, over a decade prior. But that moment at Heide was a turning point – audiences were irresistibly drawn to Ivimey’s sculptures, which were at once contemporary and alchemic, and unlike anything that had been seen before.   

Two decades on Ivimey’s practice remains wholly unique, both aesthetically and in its pathos. Her sculptures, her ‘charm bracelet’ as she once called them, continue to captivate with a sense of otherworldliness that is hard to pin down. Ivimey herself acknowledges there’s an aura to the figures she creates, regularly reflecting they feel more like her children than work. She never feels alone in the studio, which is to be expected when so much of the personal is interwoven with the crisscross of delicate vertebrae for which she has become known. 

In her warehouse in inner Sydney, Ivimey lives and works surrounded by the treasure and detritus of her life. If you’re imagining an unruly mess of gemstones, flax and bone, don’t. Her studio is ordered with almost military precision. Huge plastic containers give logic to the objects – both natural and fabricated – she has collected over the years. Everything is labelled and in its place. Yet there is nothing cold or sterile about it. Studio shelves are laden with memories in the form of figures and talismans. Postcards, feathers, rosary beads. Tokens of friendship and of love. Impeccably crafted sculptures from recent years sit alongside her earliest experimentations and, often, her beloved cat. Reminders of past and present.  

When the pandemic landed in Australia, Ivimey was perhaps better poised than most to endure the strange first months of lockdown and isolation, ensconced as she was in this sculptor’s version of a fantasy toyshop. Generally self-sufficient and happy working alone, she had a seemingly endless supply of things to interest her, and little chance to be interrupted from her play. But as the pandemic dragged on, frustration and uncertainty flourished. The call regarding The Syndicate commission came just at the right time. A new challenge gave renewed focus, and the opportunity to explore new modes of making. 

Like many of us in those early uncertain days of Covid-19, Ivimey found herself inexplicably drawn to the comfort of nostalgia, and reflections on childhood. She reread A.A. Milne’s Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young, and was inspired by Ernest H. Shepard’s illustrations that accompanied the texts. Slowly, a gathering of toddler-sized figures came to life in the studio, each carrying with them an object of comfort or an element of make believe—Spunta’s well-loved little bunny, Kennebec’s vintage teddy, Red Rascal’s spectacular red pelage and charmed snake. Collectively titled Parvuli (Latin for ‘childhood’), they’re innocent and defiant, optimistic and full of wonder. 

Ivimey’s meditations on life have always made their way to her workbench, reflecting both her tenacity and her vulnerabilities, but Parvuli’s figures retain little of the weight from the time in which they were conceived. They are all of us, linked by our common experience of having once being children in a world that is as often overwhelming as it is incredible and joy-filled. 

Commissioned for the exhibition Syndicate 5+1, Parvuli, at artCollective WA, Perth, June 2023