Exxopolis

Bare footed on a recent sunny afternoon along Sydney harbour, I was inhaled through an oscillating plastic skin-flap doorway into a swollen-bellied, swaying structure nestled beside the Opera House. Immediately drenched in deeply saturated green light, I peered across a cavernous dome into the vibrant labyrinth of cool and bloody hues that is Exxopolis.

The ventricles of an alien world…

Exxopolis is a luminarium – an “aquarium of light”, as some describe, designed and constructed by artist collective ‘Architects of Light’ in 2012 with the volunteered assistance of community groups in the UK. As the Architects state, Exxopolis “occupies half a football field and rises to the height of a 3-storey house. EXXOPOLIS took 6 months to build with 55 people contributing to the making.  It used 3,000m2 of plastic in its construction in 9,000 individual pieces joined with 6 kilometres of seams”. The experience is reportedly ever-changing according to the specific conditions of the outside weather and natural light which penetrates the thin plastic skin of the structure and illuminates it’s interior. Exxopolis was on show at Sydney Harbour from 3rd – 27th of January this year; a delightful marvel to unexpectedly stumble upon.

Exxopolis at Sydney harbour. Image credit: Daniel Boud (source)

Like stepping aboard an alien spaceship, wandering through the arteries and organs of a softly breathing beast, or being on the inside of a balloon, the luminarium was a truly otherworldly artistic experience. The senses are stimulated by the indescribable intensity of brightly coloured light, sounds sliding down and seeping through the thin plastic skin, and the intricate patterns which splay across the ceilings of the domes.

Architectural structure within the red dome.

Blue dome ceiling.

 

The way people inhabit the space, like creatures meditatively gliding through the chambers of a lusciously glowing aquarium, was interesting in itself. There are many ‘pods’ along the connecting tunnels and within the main domes of the building; I observed people gently brushing palms against the unthinkably thin PVC skin; lovers embracing within the ruby-red radiance, children lying with their backs agains the cool floor, doused in a blaze of electric blue, watching the wind ripple patterned dome ceilings reminiscent of stained-glass chapel windows, and elastic walls supporting more solitudinous souls, meditating in the glow of radioactive green.

Ceiling design of the central dome.

An image by John Owens (from Architects of Air website) of the breathtaking central dome. For more photographs of Exxopolis have a squiz through the official website here.

Reference:

Architects of Air, 2014; ‘About Exopolis’, Architects of Air, accessed on 4th March 2014 at: http://www.architects-of-air.com/luminaria/exxopolis.html

String Theory and Embedded: Craig Walsh

String Theory

String Theory at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney is a memorable and often deeply poignant exhibition curated by Glen Barkley. The show brings together aesthetically and conceptually diverse works by Indigenous artist from across Australia – all thematically tied by a ubiquitous, deceivingly simple and fundamental element – string.

Frances Djulibing
Yukuwa (Feather string yam vine), 2013
Banyan tree bark, cockatoo feathers, beeswax

The works are conceptually timely. Some works carry heavy political undertones. Some celebrate collaborative construction, where traditional weaving methods, alive and well, are shared with each new generation. Many works involve a hybridised aesthetic where traditional materials or ways of working are synthesised with diverse ideas and new mediums. The art is critical within the contemporary scene, flourishing and valued within and without the ‘white cube’.

Dale Harding
bright eyed little dormitory girls, 2013
hession sacks, mohair wool

Yarrenyty Arltere Artists
Little Dingi (still), 2012
DVD
viewable online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea8WJuRwPLc
(some textile characters from animation below)

From video to sculpture to interdisciplinary crossovers, the eclectic range of works are woven thick with stories. There are stories to be remembered and retold; to be revered or reviled, evoking rapture or remorse – or perhaps a complex confusion of everything. Hidden histories, tragedy, hope, resilience, and beauty are the interwoven fibres that thread throughout the exhibition,with a strong sense of community at its heart.

Laurie Nilson
Just another Black C, 2011
Powder coated barbwire

Vivki West
plamtennor/gathering, 2013
Bull kelp, kangaroo skin, wallaby skins, tea tree, string

String Theory is an intimate, immersive collection of shared and diverse stories, both political and personal, culturally important within a contemporary social climate of conflicting interests, ongoing battles for justice and inspiring communities bustling with creative energy.

Tjanpi Desert Weavers
Minya Punu Kungkarangkalpa, installation detail, 2013

————————————————————————————————-

Embedded: Craig Walsh

Gazing across on the first floor of the MCA, one is lured by faint lights and the rumblings of distant voices into a cavernous, darkened gallery space sheltering video works, photographs, and 21 immense industrial bins of iron ore. Upon entering Embedded – a show produced by the artist Craig Walsh in collaboration with the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation, the MCA and Rio Tinto, one is submerged into a spiritual space…a sacred space, as a chill runs through the room – pervading silence broken gently by the melodic voices of Murujuga Aboriginal elders spilling from speakers beside glowing screens. Navigating pathways between mountainous piles of illuminated orange iron ore in metal containers and wrapped by walls painted half blue, half yellow, with a fluorescent strip between – the colours of Rio Tinto mining uniforms, one senses a heavy solemnity…a resonating mournfulness.

Craig Walsh
Embedded: Craig Walsh, installation view, MCA
Image by Alex Davies from MCA website

Along one side of the room is a multi-screened installation of digital video works titled In Country. Onto sacred sites, textured by bush and rock formations within the Burrup Peninsula in north west Western Australia, sunburnt projections of Murujuga elders are cast. Their weathered faces are ’embedded’ in the landscape – the earth so deeply connected to spirituality, art and culture within Indigenous communities. Screens sequenced to illuminate one after another with an image of a member of the local indigenous community breathe life into the rugged rocks, the faces narrating Murujuga historical and ongoing presence and significance in an almost otherworldly performance.

The space is utterly absorbing; one feels the emotional weight of lingering tension between contested interests, personal and political. As the artist Craig Walsh explains, “I see the Pilbara as a place which uniquely presents a concentration of extremes… The contrast between the ‘land’ as commodity and ‘Land’ as spiritual and cultural guidance are co-existing in the installation, and the audience will be physically positioned somewhere between the two”. *

Craig Walsh,
Embedded: Craig Walsh, installation view, MCA, 2013

The Burrup Peninsula is home to the world’s largest collection of ancient Indigenous rock artworks, some estimated to be up to 30,000 years old *. Embedded within the environment, the works are of incredibly deep cultural, historical and spiritual importance. Located along the West Pilbara Coast – considered the “engine room of the nation” *, it is also home to a number of national and multinational corporations that carry out various industrial activities in the area. This includes the multi-billion dollar company Rio-Tinto, it’s presence in the Pilbara involving “a network of 14 iron ore mines, three port facilities, a 1,400 kilometre rail network; and related infrastructure”. * According to the ‘Stand Up for the Burrup’ website run by the Friends of Australian Rock Art (FARA) activist group, the Western Australia state government “continues to invest in industrial infrastructure on the Burrup”, with plans to “turn the Burrup into the main industrial hub for the Asia Pacific region”. * Nearly 20% of the rock art in the area has been destroyed or disturbed by industrial activity, FARA Chair Judith Hugo states. *

Craig Walsh
In Country (detail), 2012
Embedded: Craig Walsh, installation view, MCA, 2013

Embedded constructs an interesting dialogue between the complex tensions and interactions within the Pilbara concerning it’s unique environment of rich natural and cultural resources and how they are valued. Major corporations’ right to plunge into a natural ecosystem for the self-engorgement of profit, and the significance of the land and it’s art to local Indigenous culture and spirituality – and broader Australian society – are thrown up into question. With poetic and multi-sensory beauty, Walsh transports the realities of coexisting and colliding worlds into the contemplative, timeless space of the gallery.

Here is a link to the project’s website with more information: Murujuga in the Pilbara

String Theory runs until the 27th of October and Embedded: Craig Walsh until the 24th of November. Both exhibitions were deeply touching, poetic, and politically and culturally important – a visit comes highly recommended!

* References (in order of appearance in text):

MCA Media Release – Embedded: Craig Walsh

Australian Geographic – Burrup Peninsula rock art among world’s oldest

Karratha Visitor Centre – Mining and Industry

Rio Tinto – Iron Ore

Friends of Australian Rock Art –Stand Up for the Burrup

Australian Geographic – New threats to world’s largest rock art collection  

Primavera 2013

The Museum of Contemporary Art is currently exhibiting some fantastic shows which I recently had the pleasure of immersing myself in. Hair frizzed and clothes dampened from an unexpected drizzle of rain, a friend and I clambered onto the first floor of the art museum and entered a spacious white-walled gallery holding an exhibition that brims with wondrous sights, sounds, and structures – Primavera 2013.

Now in its 22nd year, Primavera is an annual exhibition of young, emerging Australian artists aged 35 and under, showing until the 17th of November. From across the continent, this clever, daring group of 8 creatives have put together an excitingly eclectic show including video, photography, sculptural installations, drawing, and works which quite playfully splash across any pre-conceived categories. As the gallery states in the show’s media release, the themes of this year’s Primavera include “a moving investigation of romantic and family relationships, the creation of portals into fictional realms, a look at the role of language in the shaping of (and the breaking down of) the self and the ways sound shapes our physical and emotional worlds”. *

Juz Kitson
Changing Skin, 2013 (installation view)
Southern Ice Porcelain, Jingdezhan porcelain (pig fat porcelain), terracotta clay, paraffin wax, horse hair and goat hair, deer and cow hide, flocking, resin, natural found material, silk thread, tulle, polyurethane. Oxidised, PVD fired (physical vapour deposition), and lustre fired

   

Juz Kitson‘s extensive ceramic creations grow and delicately dangle from the corner of the gallery and adjacent walls; polished, ornate forms gleaming in a soft, angled light. Edging towards this looming shrine that radiates a rather spiritual stillness, Kitson’s beastly creatures are sombre and nightmarish yet simultaneously gentle and blossoming with life. A hauntingly beautiful portal to a surreal realm indeed, Changing Skin involves complex interplays of the abject and the alluring…the brittle and the furred…lingering deathly fragments and flowering, hybrid creatures which metamorphose into sexually transgressive structures. Kitzon, for this piece, has collected and worked with the skeletal remains of Australian roadkill alongside her own floral, anatomically-suggestive ceramic forms – dripped in wax or liquid porcelain, sometimes downed with hair or bejewelled, in deeply disturbing and frightfully gruesome yet sumptuously ornate and tender amalgamations. Powdery porcelain, fragile strings of beads, soft woollen furs and pastel pink shades perhaps connote notions of traditional femininity, while the lusciously succulent, repulsively hairy and fleshy forms; delicately detailed floral pieces, and dangling, lustrous organic bulbs reference sexual organs in a poetic, sculptural symphony of life, death and bodily transgression.

Juz Kitson
Changing Skin, 2013 (installation view)
Southern Ice Porcelain, Jingdezhan porcelain (pig fat porcelain), terracotta clay, paraffin wax, horse hair and goat hair, deer and cow hide, flocking, resin, natural found material, silk thread, tulle, polyurethane. Oxidised, PVD fired (physical vapour deposition), and lustre fired

Many of the works in this exhibition tested the limits of the gallery space and utilised the white walls in inventive new ways, responding to the MCA space specifically – dangling from corners as in Kitson’s installations, blossoming from walls, housed in specifically build shelters or scaling the walls and carpeting across the cold concrete floor of the gallery as Jess Johnson‘s installation so boldly does. In a shocking explosion of illusionistic, geometric designs, johnson has transformed a gallery corner into a strange, ‘Alice in Wonderland’-esque domestic interior lit by the radiant yellow glow of an overhanging beehive-like chandelier. Stepping onto the patterned carpet which sprawls from the corner across the floor, one is hypnotised by the black and white design painted directly onto the gallery walls on which large, intricate framed drawings hang. Highly detailed and deeply strange, again – like mystical doorways to an unearthly realm, phrases such as ‘Of course, things go bad’ disrupt the delicate beauty of the image and deeply disturb…teasingly lingering in the dizzyingly disoriented mind momentarily lost within this transcendent interior.

Jess Johnson
Of course, things go bad, (installation view) 2013
Pen, copic markers, collage, metallic paint on paper

Jess Johnson
Of course, things go bad, (installation view) 2013
Pen, copic markers, collage, metallic paint on paper

A very different and intense work by the artist Kusum Normoyle is placed around the gallery, screens and headphones mounted on the walls. Normoyle’s experimentally edited film documentation of a performance in which she screams through an amplifier in public, urban spaces echoes through the mind days after its viewing. The disturbingly distorted female voice of near-unbrearably shrill shrieks and raspy tones alongside sustained metallic sounds shatter and rattle violently through the industrial and urban environments in which the isolated artist expressively contorts and twists in a seemingly transcendent state. The film is completely compelling in its horrific depictions of a dull, concreted atmosphere, ominous black objects that spike and shake with electrified sounds, a thrashing bodily performance and deep-reaching shards of noise. As Deratz writes, Normoyle’s performance “creates a kind a fracture in the world, a fault-line where feminine expressiveness shapes matter into potentially new formations”. * Like an intensely anxious creature, mood, or thought…the sounds sinisterly brew and rapidly explode through the cracks of familiar grey landscapes.

Kusum Normoyle
Accord with Air Tjentiste, (installation view) 2012
Single-channel digital video, colour, sound

Jacqueline Ball‘s immense photographs – each referencing the dimensions of a doorway, panel the gallery wall in an overwhelming display of intricate fleshy caverns and ambiguous rocky formations. Only after reading the label on the wall does one realise that these sublime scenes were meticulously constructed by the artist in her studio…

Jacqueline Ball
Fluctuate #8, (installation view) 2013
Photographic print on 305gsm Hahnemühle archival photo rag

Jackson Eaton‘s photographs, interestingly displayed in rows of frames on tables in the centre of the space are equally beautiful, though in a very different way. The series presents an intimate insight into Eaton’s previous romantic relationship with a young South Korean woman, which we read ended in heartbreak – Eaton, perhaps in an almost therapeutic, slightly surreal response goes on to almost identically restage the fragmented memories documented in the photographs from his previous relationship with his father and his father’s Korean partner, who he married in the years following a divorce with Eaton’s mother. The posed couples are photographed in a sometimes quite vernacular style which renders the tender dialogue of two eerily echoed yet divergent lives and the stories of love and loss between Eaton and his father deeply touching.

Jackson Eaton
From the series Better Half, 2007 – 2012
Type C prints

Another set of really interesting, hilarious and absolutely absurd works in the exhibition are Heath Franco‘s short films, housed in a specifically made shelter – perfectly summed up by Frost as an enjoyable “madhouse”. * Franco’s more-than-slightly mental clips feature elaborate, gaudily costumed characters performed by the artist, playful special effects, and phrases repeated to the brink of lunacy – at which point words become devoid of meaning (and meaning becomes devoid of words) – which destabilise familiarity and render Australian suburban domesticity and mainstream television intensely strange and sinister. Standing for a long period of time before these fluorescently glowing split screens within the small, constructed space and becoming completely absorbed, one finds themselves laughing wildly at the exaggerated enactments…until, that is, the acts – drawn out and seemingly endlessly repeated consequently seep into a realm of nightmarish distortion, where comfortable connotations of domestic familiarity unravel a hidden, hostile hysteria.

Heath Franco
DREAM HOME, (still) 2012
2 channel digital video, colour, sound

Overall, Primavera 2013 was delightfully surprising, confronting and quite mind broadening with a real edge to it. This is definitely one to spend time in – it will undoubtedly entertain.

For more information on Primavera 2013, check out the MCA website at: http://www.mca.com.au/exhibition/primavera-2013-young-australian-artists/

* References:                                                                                                                          Primavera 2013 – MCA media release                                                                              MCA Insight: Primavera 2013 – By Tristan Deratz                                                          Primavera 2013 – review – By Andrew Frost

Transitions

An interesting exhibition – Transitions – is currently on display within University of Wollongong’s Creative Arts ‘Building 25’, showcasing an eclectic range of works by UOW’s Creative Arts staff – held in conjunction with Postgraduate Week 2013 and the celebration of 30 Years of Creative Arts at UOW. Always a pleasure to see what our lecturers and mentors are up to…

Penny Harris
Untitled (Branch) (detail) 
2013
Bronze

Penny Harris
Untitled (Branch) (detail)
2013
Bronze

Tom Williams
From the series ‘Wollongong Now’
2013
Pigment inkjet prints 
(detail below)

Didier Balez
No Lead but lots of Copper
2013
Steel and Raku fire ceramics

Jacky Redgate
From the series ‘Untitled Day’
1999
C type photograph

Robyn Douglass
Untitled
2013
Installation with drawing and soft sculpture
(detail below)

Feltportation

Curated by brilliant and whimsical Australian sculptor Anita Larkin, the recent exhibition Feltportation (14th August – 12th September 2013) which accompanied The 12th Southern Hemisphere Feltmakers Convergence is one of soft textures, bright and earthy colours, and deeply strange objects. Held in the University of Wollongong’s Faculty of Creative Arts Gallery, this intriguing show brought together 13 contemporary artists – each working with felt and its warm, furry qualities of a certain intimate or comforting nature in vastly disparate conceptual and aesthetic ways.

Anita Larkin
Seed, 2013
Collected objects, stoneware, and felted fibres
128 x 18 x 19cm

Martien van Zuilen
One for Every Day of the Week – Treasure Nests, 2013
Merino wool and silk fibres, assorted yarns and threads, silk fabric, knitwear, horsehair, beads, copper wire, bamboo
12-15cm in diameter each component

Leiko Uchiyama
Tatami-Mat, 2013
Navajo Churro fleece and other wool fibres
170 x 95 cm

As Anita Larkin elucidates, “Felt is a material that has been used in nomadic cultures across the Eurasian Steppes for centuries, and has been instrumental in the flow of people across these lands. Feltportation provides a platform for an exchange of ideas about the use of felt as a medium for contemporary artmaking, and it is exciting to see the wide range of works made for this exhibition, they are all testimony to how profoundly felt can speak about our humanity, and the transference of objects, words, sound, and energy between us all”. *

Jade Pegler
Hide and Hair, 2013
Wool, alpaca fibre, paper, fabric, wire
dimensions variable
(detail below)

Catherine O’Leary
Erosion, 2013
Merino wool felt
120 x 100 cm

As a medium with an ancient history and various production processes, the 13 artists in this quirky show created felt works which take the durable yet gentle material out of its traditional realm of covering, clothing, or protecting utility, and wield the fabric into contemporary art objects; objects that hybridise with vastly disparate materials, objects that almost breathe with a wild, beastly presence, objects of multi-sensory experience, objects of near monstrous and miniature proportions – that serve no purpose at all, and nightmarish objects that disturb and parody the familiar.

Anna Gunnarsdóttir
The Friends and Blossom, 2013
Hand felted Icelandic wool with embroidery, shaped and stiffened
68 x 31 cm (The Friends, bottom), 70 x 37 cm (Blossom, above)

Giselle Penn and Donna McKinnis
Along for the Ride, 2013
Hand felted merino and corriedale wool, silk and mohair fibres
120 x 160

As discussed in the exhibition’s media release, “the making of felt is currently going through a revival. This is due, in part, to felt’s unique tactile allure and the quiet, sensory experience of its making. There is a surge of innovation within this craft, and practitioners are finding new ways of making felt forms, combining it with new technologies and skills from other disciplines, as well as bringing felt into an art context.” *

Brigitte Haldemann
Embodiment 2 and Embodiment 1, 2013
Wool, and silk fibres, wet felted with resists, printed and hand stitched
88 x 50 x 27 cm (Embodiment 2, left), 90 x 37 x 22 cm (Embodiment 1, right)

Julie Brennan
The Traveller, 2013
Crossbreed and merino wool fibres, nylon webbing, and plastic clips
30 x 30 x 30

Julie Brennan
Beam me up Scotty, 2013
Crossbreed wool fibres and PVA
40 x 40 x 4 cm

This was a delightfully surprising, endearingly weird and conceptually strong show that really demonstrated the contemporary and artistic possibilities of such a historical, hand-made material.

* Reference:                                            http://lha.uow.edu.au/crearts/fcagallery/UOW155347.html

Treasure Hunters

Treasure Hunters flyer from Project Contemporary Artspace

Treasure Hunters was an entertaining, humourous and delightfully quirky exhibition which I had the pleasure to immerse myself in last Sunday – the show’s last day of viewing at Project Contemporary Artspace. Dusting off and displaying in public the diverse, intricate collections of an interesting group of artists, this exhibition transformed the friendly little Wollongong gallery into an endearingly odd cabinet of curiosities.

Here are some images of the show:

Treasure Hunters installation view
at Project Contemporary Artspace

Michael Keighery
Smoking Apparatus from the “Institute of Pornographic Antiquities, Scientific Wonders and Artistic Curiosities”

Michael Keighery
Smoking Apparatus from the “Institute of Pornographic Antiquities, Scientific Wonders and Artistic Curiosities”

Martin Ison and Moira Kirkwood
Web-footed Fraternity

Martin Ison and Moira Kirkwood
Web-footed Fraternity

Julie Wright
It’s on the fridge

Julie Wright
It’s on the fridge

Jack Draper
Political Poster collection from the late 1960’s, 70’s & 80’s, including work from Redback Graphics, Earthworks, Matilda Graphics, Harrodin Press & Tin Sheds, covering topics from anti conscription, anti war, anti capitalism, anti uranium, trade unions, International Women’s Day, Reclaim the Night, Wimmins Dances, Women’s Liberation and Lesbian Balls

To end a thought provoking day and make the most of the warm, pastel-skied evening, a walk along a local beach, greeting carpet snake-weilding fishers and slipping into rock-pools with a fellow artist and friend, was really refreshing.

Wollongong, as seen from Fairy Meadow beach

Inspired, Hannah decided to start a collection of her own – so far including a smooth seashell, an asteroid-like rock and a wibbly-wobbly fish lure fittingly named Rod…….

A Curious Collection

Diorama is a colourful, dark, delicate, bold, intense and sometimes humourous show brilliantly orchestrated by Wollongong curator Louise Brand. Currently on exhibition at Wollongong Art Gallery, this wacky collection of sculptural works by Australian artists explore the notions of the museum display, the ‘cabinet of curiosity’ and the diorama. Held in the Mann – Tatlow Gallery, each artist’s diverse work inhabits one of the softly lit glass-protected alcoves – small worlds arranged by the artists and Louise, who worked extensively with each artist to creatively facilitate interesting dialogue between their displays. One could spend much time gazing into these windows and absorbing the detailed nuances, stories and ideas.

 

One window in particular really caught my eye – a dark, shadowy alcove housing a collection of hauntingly beautiful, strange creatures created by artist Linde Ivimey. Her enigmatic characters are made from everyday, abject materials such as animal bones and hair, as well as fabric that she herself dyes and hand-stitches. Her figures, deeply disturbing yet enthralling in their raw, earthy, gothic beauty, tell stories and bear a sense of history. Many of the sculptures are maternally themed and reference birth – an interesting juxtaposition to the decay and death associated with skeletal remains. Having worked with human hair as an abject yet intimate sculptural material, I would love to experiment with other natural bodily materials like bones in such a delicate way as Ivimey. Being a vegetarian, I’ve been looking for bones in places other than my luscious dinner plate of vegetable fibres… so far I’ve come across a rabbit’s skull and some crab claws on walks along the beach.

Linde Ivimey
‘Off With Her Head’ (detail), 2012
Steel armature, iron, wine and champagne foils, acrylic resin, dyed cotton, silk and acrylic fibre, plant fibre, pigment, seed pods, cow, sheep, turkey & chicken bones, woven vertebrae, peacock feathers, black & white pearls

Linde Ivimey
‘Segni I’, 2007
Steel armature, cast acrylic resin, dyed cotton, natural fibre, peacock feathers, sheep, turkey, duck, chicken & snake bones

A bright, bold display window of surreal sculptural constructions by Susan O’Doherty, working quite nicely in contrast to the quiet earthiness of Ivimey’s window – yet equally eerie, also immediately grabs my attention each time I enter the exhibition space.

Susan O’Doherty speaking about her works in the display window behind.

O’Doherty gave an insightful talk about her quirky, domestically-themed pieces, explaining her use of found materials – discarded beside the road or discovered in junk shops, including dolls, dolls clothes, clocks, games, measuring tape and pieces of furniture reminiscent of a 1940’s – ’50’s Australian suburban mise-en-scene. Reflecting on her rather dreamy, nostalgic collection of works, O’Doherty discussed her exploration of time, fading memories, decay and a society that lives by the clock – our daily lives deeply controlled by time. She also spoke of the disposable nature of contemporary society and the fast disappearance of well-crafted, made-to-last objects – such as the boardgames she seeks to preserves in her art.

Susan O’Doherty
‘Sugar Fix’, 2011 – 2012
Mixed media assemblage

Door handles and old keys also feature in some of her sculptural assemblages, suggesting the possibilities of new worlds, locked away lives and hidden histories, O’Doherty explained, forming part of her symbolic visual language. Each of the objects embedded in her assemblages is worn, decaying…once loved, beaten about or bearing witness to daily domestic dramas and tragedies in the kitchen…is a container of human history and emotion. On a deeper, more personal level, O’Doherty compassionately reminisced about her mother, who she explains had raised 4 children and felt trapped in the home, and how issues of femininity and domesticity comes intuitively through her work. Deadened doll faces pouting painted, red-lipped smiles – served on tart trays, fragmented, boxed… limiting social constructions of femininity and ongoing domestic expectations still a relevant issue of concern.

Susan O’Doherty
‘Tart #2’, 2011 – 2012
Mixed media assemblage

Susan O’Doherty’s work is particularly relevant to my own practice, which often involves domestic imagery, incorporates found objects and examines the social and emotional history embedded within objects.

Susan O’Doherty
Installation detail
Diorama 2013

Another artist who’s delicate, highly detailed work flourishes beautifully within its cabinet and complements the louder, bolder curious window displays is Jackie Cavallaro. Her collected and meticulously cut-out natural images of soft pastel shades are collaged in such a way as to create depth and perspective, something I am aim to emulate in the photo-assemblage piece I am working on at the moment for a photography class at uni.

Jackie Cavallaro and Tamryn Bennett
In the dunes of death we dream,
each grain a mirror.
2013
Cut paper, spray paint, watercolour, coloured pencil, gouache, ostrich and emu eggs

Her paper work, having an almost ethereal quality, hang amongst two of her screen-printed ostrich eggs and the shared diaries of her imagery and the poetry by writer Tamryn Bennett. This work is indeed a collaborative project between Cavallaro and Bennett, and their process as a creative interdisciplinary duo is fascinating. During her artist talk Cavallaro spoke of an ongoing dialogue facilitated by journals which are passed back and forth between the two, where Bennet’s word’s inspire Cavallaro’s collaged imagery, which in turn inspire a poetic response from Bennett, and so journals exchanged between the two are creatively filled. Beside this cabinet (not pictured here) runs the looped short film Wake, a collaboration between these two artists and the graceful performer and artist Tamara Elkins. The collaborative trio have constructed a stunning display of soft, quiet, intricate beauty, each bringing to the work unique elements to create engaging forms. I myself would love to do more collaborative work with artists of various disciplines, sounds like a great fun, and an interesting way to broaden one’s mind and way of working.

Jackie Cavallaro and Tamryn Bennett
In the dunes of death we dream,
each grain a mirror.
2013
Cut paper, spray paint, watercolour, coloured pencil, gouache, ostrich and emu eggs

Here are a couple of other great works from the Diorama exhibition:

Kate Rohde
From left to right: Atlantis Fountain, Classical Stalagmite, Classical Stalagmite, Modern Jade #2, Modern Jade #1, Crystal Marsupial, all works 2012, installation view
All works polyester resin on plinths; recycled foamcor, polymer filler

Tom Moore
Parallel Backyard, 2013, installation view
Blown and solid glass, wood, paint, tar, cardboard, hot glue, dirt, fake moss

Diorama facilitates an interesting interplay of works, each contributing to a complex aesthetic, conceptual dialogue concerning a contemporary interpretation of that strange and wacky collection – the museum display, the cabinet of curiosity; the diorama. I sincerely enjoy visiting this vibrant exhibition, appreciating each work for its individual beauty and ideas, and every time noticing something new. Stepping out of the gallery, through the big automatic sliding doors that part with a worn groan, I always feel invigorated; inspired to try new ways of doing things, and eager to keep working on my own projects!

Tom Moore
Parallel Backyard, 2013, detail
Blown and solid glass, wood, paint, tar, cardboard, hot glue, dirt, fake moss

For an informative short documentary about Diorama, all the artists and their work – filmed and directed by Ashley Frost – click here.

This delightful, memorable little show runs until the 10th of November – definitely one to check out!

Jeff Wall exhibition at MCA

1st May – 28th July 2013

Just under a week ago on the 28th of July the lively Jeff Wall retrospective at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Arts (MCA) came to a close. Only a few weeks earlier, upon entering the expansive, clean and orderly exhibition space I was confronted by the strikingly vivid colours and immense scale of the luminous photographs lining the white walls before me; images I had only previously gazed upon in books. Despite the easy reproduction of photographs within various contexts, as I found out first hand one cannot appreciate the overwhelming size, bright hues and immense detail of Wall’s work as they appear in the flesh.

A renowned, highly influential Canadian photographer, Jeff Wall produces cinematic images that expand photography’s terms, redefining the medium within an increasingly interdisciplinary and boundary-crossing contemporary art scene. As Fried discusses, Wall’s practice involves “triangulating between photography, painting, and cinema”, reconstructing photography as a medium which appropriates and connects conventions of other artistic practices, marrying the narrativity and movement of painting and cinema with the stillness of photography (Fried, 2008, pg. 10). A number of Wall’s photographs make reference to or re-stage history paintings within a modern environment.Fried discusses a new photographic regime that art critic Chevrier describes as the ‘tableau form’, characterised by large scale images and “an intention that the photographs in question would be framed and hung on a wall, to be looked at like paintings…rather than merely examined up close…as had hitherto been the case” (Fried, 2008, pg. 14).

Jeff Wall
‘The Destroyed Room’, 1978
transparency in light box
159 x 234 cm
Collection of the artist
– Makes reference to Eugène Delacroix’s painting ‘Death of Sardanapalus’, 1827

Eugène Delacroix
‘Death of Sardanapalus’, 1827
oil on canvas
392 x 496 cm
Musée de Louvre
image source: http://www.mca.com.au/news/2013/05/27/jeff-wall-photographs-works-behind-works/

Wall’s photographs often emanate a painterly impression through diffuse treatment of light, intricately constructed compositions referencing the ‘rule of thirds’, their large scale (not previously possible for photography), and acute attention to detail – qualities of the tableau presentation. There is movement however between this form and the photographic – the work reveals its “artificial identity” as a photograph through its physical glossy flatness and realism (Fried, 2008, pg. 37). In this way Wall recodes the terms of photography, painterly conventions complicating the definition of photography, further challenged by the images’ presentation against an illuminating lightbox – appropriating an advertising format.

Jeff Wall
‘A sudden gust of wind (after Hokusai)’, 1993
transparency in light box
250 x 397 cm
Tate, London
– Makes reference to Hokusai’s ‘Ejiri in Suruga Province (a sudden gust of wind)’, 1830-1833

Hokusai
‘Ejiri in Suruga Province (a sudden gust of wind)’, 1830-1833
Colour woodblock
dimensions unknown
The British Museum, London
image source: http://www.mca.com.au/news/2013/05/27/jeff-wall-photographs-works-behind-works/

A staged, cinematic quality also radiates many of the images, evident in the highly orchestrated positioning of characters and settings and an almost filmic atmosphere. There is however an avoidance of theatricality and dramatic emotional expression or ‘overacting’ which distances the work from cinema, reaffirming its photographic status and complicating the interplay between stasis and narrativity. The sense of narrative inherent within painting and cinema, the alluring glow and vividness of light-boxed advertisements and the flat, frozen-in-time quality of a photographic image converge in both unsettling and compelling arrangements, creating new opportunities for photography within an integrated cultural arena.

A friend and I, slowly meandering through and occasionally sitting to absorb the great detail of these powerful images, both left reflecting on the stories, ideas and beauty of the photographs, feeling energetically inspired.

References

Fried, M., 2008; Why Photography Matters As Art Never Before, Yale University Press, Singapore, pgs. 10, 14 & 37