FAQ .

Any number of creative people will tell you that creativity is not a choice, it’s a compulsion. For me, it’s a lifelong attempt to turn emotion into shape, shape into emotion and confusion into meaning. But it must remain lastingly meaningful. For me, no other form of physical art other than sculpture can fulfil the brief.

Having a life and career immersed in the creative realm grants me the privilege of continual access to a deeper part of my soul. Being truly creative means that you have freedom to play as a child without imaginative constraints, and solutions that you arrive at are not inhibited by the judgement of others.

Of course, applying creativity means working out how to implement different solutions in a world with many boundaries. That’s a creative skill in itself, but many of my best ideas would not have come about if I hadn’t had the personal space to initially explore freely.

My father was a manual arts teacher and he enjoyed making furniture. I soon learned to enjoy it as well; designing and fabricating. Looking back, I sense that shape, size, symmetry, spatial relationships, tactility and a kind of multi-dimensional cussedness were always there.

I was always torn between ideas and reality. Because I struggled to concentrate on some concepts other children simply accepted, I had to limit my imagination to things I could grasp in my own world. I could pull things apart and put them back together again. As I matured, that led to a more focused concentration on construction rather than demolition.

The world expects sculpture to be complex and exclusive so I can spend more time creating forms that imbue more meaning and quality than ever before. I can wholly grasp the challenge of creating something purely because it’s worth summoning it from the imagination into existence.

What I can claim to be is unusual! Of interest and reassurance to collectors is that, as well as a creative artist, I am also an industrial designer and project manager with almost three decades of experience. Few sculptors in the world have this combination of skills. They allow me to design, supervise, manufacture and manage the most complex sculptural projects anywhere.

I could say that I favour particular materials, but I don’t. What is more important is the baseline of what I am trying to achieve. I select a material because I see it as the best solution to expressing an idea I want to bring to life.

I’m fortunate to have the skills to tackle pretty much any material because I’m confident handling any manufacturing process. Formal design training has helped me understand and analyse how and why an object can have appeal, create emotion and positively engage with people.

I love the surrealist work of Salvador Dali. The ambiguity of his works allows viewers to go on a journey of detail and discovery where you’re allowed exposure to enigmas without being made to feel stupid. It’s a playful type of art that is created to bring joy.

I also have a high regard for Dame Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-British architect whom many consider to be among the best of the 21st century. I view her as a sculptor who worked on large-scale public works. Her buildings often made use of highly sensuous organic curves that, within the monotony of other city architecture, made for both flamboyant and minimalist structural art at the same time.

In my view, nature is the greatest sculptor of all. I often reference nature and find myself being influenced by the analogies I have drawn looking into the purity of the natural world. The way curves, lines and organic form co-exist to bring harmony to our environment, in just the right balance, is an amazing phenomenon to observe and understand.

Finding the right sculptor and commissioning a work that rewards your hopes should never be a lottery. You need to rely on just one factor: reputation. The artist should be well known for producing consistently excellent work.

By excellent, I mean their sculptures are in high public and private demand, appear in the permanent collections of respected galleries, museums and other public displays, and command significant prices.

This is relatively easy for the collector or person looking to commission the sculpture. The same cannot be said for the sculptor who must endure years of hard and often thankless labour to build their reputation.

First, for those who commission the sculpture, it must fully satisfy the brief so that they truly love the work and believe it enriches their lives.

Second, and this holds especially true for work on public display, it should enhance the space in which it’s located and the reputation of the institution or the owner.

And third, it will engage the attention and add to the emotional wellbeing of all who interact with it.

Sculpture is a rich, complex and rewarding art. I give educational talks and presentations to those in the industry who can benefit from understanding the process of creating successful sculpture and commissioning sculpture. I can offer insight that draws upon nearly three decades in design and sculpture.

Mainartery is an enterprise of curator, sculptor and project manager Todd Stuart that helps art lovers find the best sculptures and sculptors the international market can offer.

Todd employs his near-three decades of experience to recognise, pre-qualify and select sculptors and their masterpieces. He gauges their worth through the lens of his core principles—creativity, mastery and engagement—to identify up-and-coming and established sculptors.

Mainartery collaborates at the unique intersection of creativity and commercial processes. Its success lies in industry and design knowledge, coupled with process-driven abilities to manage substantial projects with time-tested pre-qualified production and logistics partners.

Fully understanding your needs allows Mainartery to funnel the appropriate brief for commissioned works to our artists and inspire them to a successful result.

Mainartery identifies and represents the worthiest sculptors and their works. This makes topflight sculptors and their masterpieces accessible, meaning you can purchase affordable, yet unique, legacy works or exclusive limited-edition pieces. Purchasing sculpture within these parameters also boosts your acquisition’s investment potential.

Within our stable of sculptors, we have a great variety of styles and experience.

Some are international and well established in their career, niche, theme, material type, style or genre. They often work only to their exact style and form. Others are equally creative but more open to adapting their chosen material or style to new ideas and projects. Most artists are open to commissioned projects, but the distance they’re prepared to depart from their own style varies.

Commissioning sculpture is a personal adventure, a beginning that will capture your heart for life and for generations beyond. From the outset, we become joint custodians of your emotional vision. We are here to help you obtain the sculpture that expresses your identity, values and ethos in whatever form you choose.

This is, by nature, a highly personal process. Design elements, including the selected materials and finishes, can change. In most cases our artists are flexible in working with a variety of materials and finishes. However, some will hesitate before departing too far from their preferred style and materials, or if the materials are not durable or fit for purpose or may pose a risk to their reputation. If you have an idea for a sculpture, we will consider it if it is not a reproduction of another artist’s work or infringes copyright.

Contact us for an obligation free consultation. We help you gain clarity on what sculpture will captivate you and how we can co-ordinate a step-by-step journey to fulfilment.

Despite the expense, Mainartery has one of the largest sculpture stock collections on the market.

A good number of the sculptures on this website are available for immediate delivery. You can tell whether the sculpture is unique, available for immediate dispatch, has remaining editions available and delivery lead times within the specific gallery and specification information supplied with each work.

When commissioning a sculpture, production and delivery depends on the size, materials, design complexity and shipping method you choose. Production and delivery can take as little as eight to-10 weeks or as much as six-to-seven months.

The very nature of cast sculpture—making a mould from which virtually unlimited numbers of replicas can be produced—means sculptors must approach their market in one of three ways:

1. They rely on their reputation and sales record to produce only exclusive art: one-off works that sell for a premium
2. They produce limited editions which, once sold, can never be repeated
3. They produce unlimited, or open, editions but run the risk of flooding the market with nonexclusive products commanding only commodity prices.

Mainartery works with options one and two, and occasionally with option three. It means that when an exclusive piece is completed, or a limited edition sells out, its value will hold. Our commitment in option one is that no other piece like yours has been made or ever will be again.

And in option two, that only the stated number of versions exists, and we’ve destroyed the mould.

Many inexperienced art buyers wonder why sculpture is so expensive. Creating even a small sculpture generally takes months at a minimum and mostly uses costly, high-grade materials. Because it involves three dimensions, conceiving the right idea is a huge challenge.

The artist must then convert the concept into a perfectly carved wooden or stone sculpture. If working in metal, they must shape a perfect clay model and produce flawless fibreglass moulds in which to cast or forge materials.

The sculptor may or may not have their own foundry. If they do, they will have invested vast sums of money and time setting up complex technology that is time consuming and costly to operate. If they don’t own their foundry, they risk considerable money upfront to fund the manufacturing operation, employ artisans and pay for materials.

The rough casting then needs to be smoothed and assembled with finishes applied and can involve dangerous and toxic processes. With all these risks, there is the added weight of a hefty investment of time, with no guarantee of a sale at the end.

We’ve yet to receive a refund or return request in 28 years. However, in the event that you are not totally satisfied with a purchase from our range, we offer a full refund, minus packaging and shipping costs, or a credit towards another artwork. For commissioned sculptures, we guarantee the work at every stage, keeping you progressively updated and working tirelessly with you until you are delighted.

We believe sculpture isn’t just for life; it’s for as close as humanity can get to eternity. We so value the relationship we’ve built with you and our shared love of a superlative art form. Our foremost goal is ensuring that you always feel proud owning one of our sculptures.

We design most of our smaller-to-medium scale sculptures as self-supporting with their own base or plinth. They require nothing more than placement in your desired location. For larger works, we map out a step-by-step plan at the start of the process to create a seamless journey for you.

On installation, we provide detailed but simple maintenance instructions. In most cases the required maintenance is minor, preventive and easily carried out by most people. Maintenance usually centres on a basic routine of washing off any foreign materials or atmospheric pollutants and resealing the surface with specific polishes or waxes once or twice a year.

Hire, rent and lease arrangements are useful for people involved in commercial property development and sales, facility and event managers or hotel, hospitality and corporate spaces.

You can display mainartery sculptures for a pre-determined time for a fixed fee. Or you can lease them for an agreed period with the option to buy, with a portion of your lease fees going toward the purchase price.

Generally, our offer to rent or lease sculpture applies to the state of Victoria, Australia. Under special circumstances, we may consider hire and lease requests from elsewhere in Australia.

If you’d like to represent mainartery’s work, please contact us with your company details, website, exhibition methods and marketing territory. If your proposal is interesting for both parties, we can make the suitable arrangements to proceed.

All literature and images on this website are the exclusive property and copyright of mainartery. If you have commercial arrangements with us, we will provide you with a suite of marketable images for your use. Otherwise, please contact us for prior consent.

Established by Todd Stuart, Mainartery Project Management manages large-scale sculptural projects from ideation to installation or any specific component within.

Mainartery Project Management summarises not only the process we work through, but the outcome we achieve in combining a productive art form, a location, the act of installation and the idea of enhancing space to create a better experience for all.

Mainartery Project Management has a rare and deep understanding of the interplay between creativity and process. The result is human accord on every level.

Large scale sculptures are major undertakings that typically involve complex designs and processes, dozens of people and many thousands of dollars.

We energetically support the truth that good communication and a collaborative, collective approach will achieve the result you want and deserve.

Cross checking our meticulous 10-step process at every stage keeps us all on the same joyous and positive page.

Yes. As start-to-finish artists, designers, sculptors and project managers, we cover every part of the creative, manufacturing, installation and maintenance cycle. Clients are free to engage Mainartery Project Management for any component of this process.

Tell us about your project, and we’ll advise on how we can help bring it to fruition.

We have nearly three decades’ experience working with architects and designers to create bespoke productions locally and internationally. As a sculptor and trained industrial designer, Todd understands the importance of attention to every design detail, no matter how small.

Design intent is delivered with a disciplined attitude and pre-qualified support base. These, together with Todd’s training and experience, provide a close analysis from first principles of a design in terms of contrast, shape, form, line, proportion, space, balance, hierarchy, unity, texture, colour and rhythm.

Your experience is seamless, from approving a designer’s visualisation or an artist’s maquette to the installation of a monumental sculpture, as though the design leapt from the page into reality.

Yes. More than half our work is from outside Australia, and our production facilities are also international. We frequently travel abroad to clients and project sites to supervise production.

At the outset of manufacturing, Mainartery Project Management communicates to production parties the final brief with all defining specifications and engineering. These include grades of materials, construction methods and detail, fixing details, foundation frames, final finishing, project plan and time frames, logistics plan and payment allocations.

In our initial briefing with you, we raise the issue of which country’s engineering standards should apply. As a default we work to Australian standards, many of which are based on British and European standards, generally considered to be world’s best.

Our core foundries are in partnership with us for lifetime relationships, and that is key to passing on the best manufactured quality to you.

In creating sculptures, we also form legacies that must stand the tests of time, value and exposure. We succeed because our processes are geared to allow the right manufacturing decisions to be made precisely when needed.

An established, proven and disciplined process allows us to quote a fixed and managed timeframe with measurable accountabilities over all tasks to meet deadlines. The process includes built-in allowances for delays we know can occur across complex projects, including approval times from clients.

One of the most time-consuming parts of the process is production. Mainartery Project Management partners with facilities that put more than 100 artisans at our disposal. When we award a contract, all artisans are devoted to our project for the entire program.

We pay meticulous attention to the handling and transport of your artwork. Our packaging is designed to withstand the most severe conditions, including falls. We also use trusted, specialist couriers. For extra peace of mind, we recommend appropriate transit insurance.

Depending on the size, materials, design complexity and freighting methods of a commissioned project, production and delivery can take as little as eight-to-10 weeks or as much as six-to-seven months. Contact us to discuss your specific project.

Our process is so thorough we can provide a fixed quotation for all work we do. Occasionally there are factors that cannot be fully determined at the time of quotation. For instance, we may not have physically seen the site and so can’t determine our possible involvement in foundations.

In these cases, we provide a break down and allowance to give clients peace of mind that they will not receive any financial surprises. Our priority is that you have a superb experience with us.

We also undertake to uphold our fixed pricing regardless of currency fluctuations.

We take responsibility for advice or actual installation whenever it is required. Smaller-to-mediumsized sculptures usually stand on their own plinth and base, allowing you to position the work to best advantage.

A larger work may require setting foundations or special fixings dependent on its final location.

Mainartery Project Management has undertaken many international projects where our participation in the installation was part of the contract. Even if we are not involved in the final installation, we often lend a consultative eye to our client’s contractor.