about Antone

Antone began creating sculptures in wood from the age of 10 after winning a chisel set in Holland. Then, at art college, he was introduced to stone as a medium by the late Leonard Shillam, himself a well-known Queensland sculptor. He has been creating sculptures for over 25 years now.

Antone fell in love with the natural texture and feel of stone, its durability and its connection with nature and mother Earth. He works mainly with freshwater sandstone - Helidon freestone - which is suited to outdoor locations, being much harder than saltwater sandstone, as well as indoors. Helidon freestone ranges from whites to yellows, browns and pinks through to rose in colour. Antone also creates sculptures in marble, granite and other stone.

Antone's concern for mother Earth as expressed through his strongly symbolic and mythological sculptures has increased significantly in recent years. A recent direction of this homage to mother Earth has been to express this with sculpted flowers. To create something so soft, so beautiful as a flower in such a hard material as stone has given this talented sculptor a new energy to feed the humility and privilege he feels to be in such close contact with the natural elements.

What is in a name: his surname Bruinsma means brown mother in Dutch, or Earth mother. In 1992, he added the "e" to Anton, to create the meaning - as close as possible, in Dutch and English - "A(n)tone (for) Mother Earth", from his name.

As well as creating many large scale public sculptures in Australia and overseas, Antone also produces smaller more intimate works as he is called upon to do so. He has taught sculpture in formal classes and also conducts workshops at his studios and at the Woodford Folk Festival.

His resume and more information about his sculptures can be found at his stone sculpture website.