The artwork that won Sculptures At Killalea 2016 had also been rejected by Bondi's Sculptures By The Sea

Happily in “semi-retirement” the winner of last year’s Sculptures At Killalea festival is working part-time to appease his love for art.

“It means I can do the work that I like without the financial pressures and I’ve noticed a lot of sculptors are under enormous financial pressure, they really do struggle,” Greve said.

“That became very apparent to me at [Bondi’s Sculptures By The Sea] when I was there.”

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After studying fine art sculpture at RMIT University in Melbourne an opportunity arose for Greve to learn the craft of anaplastology or camouflage prosthetics. That was more than three decades ago.

“It just came up, it was an opportunity to be trained by a master in high definition prosthetics; I did that and I still kept sculpting,” he said.

“I specialise in high definition body parts for face and hands.”

The artist said his work was rewarding as there were many reasons people would need his help, for example moulding a new nose for a cancer survivor who’d had theirs removed.

“And if I've done my job properly no-one would be able to tell.” Greve said.

While his art ranges across various mediums, wood is the most common among his works.

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Greve’s piece “Daphne” was voted winner of last year’s sculpture festival at The Farm, though it was previously rejected by Bondi’s similar competition.

“That’s a bit of an intrigue that one group of judges deemed a piece not to be suitable, then another group of judges deem it to be the winner,” he said.

“I’ve entered [Bondi’s Sculptures By The Sea] many times, but only ever accepted once, that was for “Breaching”; they’ve rejected my art on every other occasion.

“That’s the nature of art, you definitely don’t get tied up in the reasons why they do and they don’t.”

Greve’s latest work “Venus” has been submitted for this year’s Killalea festival, with the hope to be featured as one of more than 60 installations along the Shell Cove coastline.

But winning is not the drive for this artist, it’s having his art seen.

“You don’t put a piece in to win, you put a piece in because you feel like just presenting your work,” he said.

Sculptures At Killalea is still calling for submissions – including a new a category for primary and secondary school collaborations.

Applications close August 25 – for more information visit: www.sculpturesatkillalea.com.au