Visual Art Exhibition Review | Brian Rope
You Cannot Trust an Open Sky | Hilary
Wardhaugh (and featuring Tarek Bakri)
ANCA Gallery | 16 July to 3 August
2025
This exhibition is a body of work responding to what the International Court of Justice has called a ‘plausible genocide’ of the people of Palestine.
Ever since hearing Hilary Wardhaugh proclaim, to laughter, when opening her 2024 exhibition, Monachopsis, it was the start of her new career as an artist, I have watched her take numerous steps along that path. She was named 2024 Canberra City News Artist of the Year, Canberra Critics Circle judges having noted her provocative, innovative and creative art endeavours. And this year alone, she has been named as a finalist in several major Prize events.
Wardhaugh actually considers herself an artist, activist/provocateur, volunteer and creator of community, saying her creative endeavours bring people together in the pursuit of a better world, and she pursues topical and creative projects to highlight issues. This exhibition certainly highlights a current issue.
The works includes documentary photography, analogue and digitised lumen prints, and film photography made between November 2023 and the end of 2024. The artist was inspired by Maranasati meditation - reflecting on mortality to foster appreciation and mindfulness in daily life. That inspiration led to her visualising responses to, and contemplating on, the nature of death. Using meticulous stencil work, multiple lumen prints (also known as solar photograms) were made. This hands-on, slow, and organic photo-making process helped Wardhaugh with challenges she faced when scrolling reports of the conflict on her phone and via mainstream media.
Amongst the works is one collaborative piece. Two framed inkjet prints of night sky photographs – one above Canberra by Wardhaugh and one above Jerusalem by Tarek Bakri – are presented as a diptych. There is considerable similarity in the two prints. Together they invite reflection about experiencing life in a situation of occupation and fear.
Bakri is a Palestinian-born researcher based in Jerusalem. Moved by the nostalgia and emotion held by many Palestinians for their former homes, he developed the idea of documenting their personal stories and displaced Palestinian villages using visual documentation. An ongoing project “We Were and Still Are... Here” began. He received the 2018 Jerusalem Award for Culture and Creativity and has held exhibitions and seminars in Palestine, the Arab World, and Europe. He believes that memory is identity and an undeniable human right.
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Hilary Wardhaugh & Tarek Bakri, You Cannot Trust An Open Sky, 2025 |
Another work is a set of four metallic prints on woodblock of the colours of the Palestine flag. Wardhaugh is not the first artist to portray these “forbidden colours.” In 1988, Felix Gonzalez-Torres did so; during another period of continuous destruction of Palestine, artists were tested, even forbidden. This work, like his then, envisages a canvas of repair and emphasises colour attuned to light as possibility, urging solidarity with those affected by loss and war.
Hilary Wardhaugh, Forbidden Colours, 2024, four metallic prints on woodblock, 50 x 180cm overall
A number of artworks make use of dots. A suite of 5 inkjet prints portrays the ever-diminishing land for Palestinians in Gaza. As with the Forbidden Colours piece, it uses the watermelon symbol of Palestinian unity. Each watermelon slice has fewer dots than the previous one. Another piece, based on an aerial map of Gaza, illustrates the destruction. Dots mark the obliterated areas, providing a deeply felt record of loss.
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Hilary Wardhaugh, Gaza Stripped, 2024, framed inkjet print, 59 x 42cm |
Another most striking work comprises a suite of 16 inkjet prints of photographs of empty bowls on a digitised lumen of a keffiyeh (traditional headdress worn by men), suspended above the smashed pieces of those bowls. It symbolises the futility of seeking food to honour the Eid religious holiday, celebrated by Muslims worldwide to mark the end of Ramadan. The distinctly patterned black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh symbolises nationalism and resistance.
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Hilary Wardhaugh, Empty Eid Aid, 2024, inkjet prints and ceramics, 240 x 240 x 100cm |
Wardhaugh hopes the artworks create some shared understanding and influence public opinion. I have no doubt they will.
This review has also been published on the author's blog here.