Imogen Wall: Burnout
Belconnen Community Gallery
Was scheduled to run until 3 April, but the gallery has been closed because of the imposed COVID-19 restrictions. Not the same, but next best, Wall’s images can be viewed online at http://www.magentadreams.site/
Reviewed by Brian Rope
This
vibrantly colourful exhibition is in the modest light-filled gallery space
inside Belconnen Community Service. Often using bright colours in my own photography,
I was immediately drawn in. Studying the works and starting to consider what
they were saying to me only added to my enjoyment of the show.
Imogen Wall
is a long-term Belconnen resident who creates in many mediums in addition to
photography. Song, dance, poetry, collage, painting and drawing are also part
of her explorations. She exhibited at Belconnen Community Gallery in 2018
(‘Journeys’ for Reconciliation Week) and 2009 (‘Dreamscapes’) and has designed
many sets for local theatre. She is currently completing a multi-disciplinary Master’s
degree at ANU.
Skyline
II © Imogen Wall
The
concept for this show started with the rather unglamorous story of a stolen car
dumped at suburban McKellar oval and then incinerated. Before the car’s remains
were towed away, Wall captured a series of photographs of the colours and
textures that had emerged during the burning. She felt these represented a sort
of beauty rising out of the destructive act, salvaging something of what the
car had been. In many ways she was responding to a personal feeling of burnout.
Murano
III © Imogen WalI
By happy
chance, a neighbour, Jack Crittle, had photographed the car before it was
burnt, providing a ‘before/after’ narrative anchor for the exhibition’s themes
of burnout and resurrection. Since then, our summer bushfires have given the
show – with its focus on the miracle of regeneration that can appear after
burning – an additional resonance.
Pintara
© Imogen WalI
Words on promotional material for the
show provide an excellent starting point for our response to what we see: Beauty can rise
from ashes just as hearts can regenerate after burnout. The exhibition
handout tells us “The burnt car was an alien presence, sparking conversation
among locals walking their dogs, making it a portal between worlds of crime and
civility. In the summer sunsets the burnt duco was iridescent. Exotic colours
and textures emerged from paint and metal alchemically transformed by burning –
rusted, charred and oxidised – the patterns evoking points of transition
(sunrises, shorelines) and strange worlds (industrial dystopias, gleaming
estuaries). This beauty, rising mysteriously from destruction suggests the
potential for life that is latent in burnout.”
Terra
© Imogen WalI
Wall considers
the heart to be central to our
physical and spiritual being, the seat of life, emotion and spirit. That has
long been a focus in her work. She likes to play with interactions between conceptual,
intuitive, and emotive layers, aiming to evoke a feeling or mood and capture
that passage of time which enables us to move beyond the present.
Titan
II © Imogen WalI
Burnout brings together a
stimulating variety of artistic reflections on that title’s many aspects of
meaning: photographs, mixed media paintings and a range of sculptural pieces
made from car parts, animal skin and found objects. The photographic works are
the central core, but the additional artworks by Fabio Fabbo and Rena Swamy express
a dynamism and boldness, add to and help bind the entire show together. The
depth of colour and directness of statement throughout is resurrecting. It
renews our spirits.
Titan
IV © Imogen WalI
Canberra film
expert, Andrew Pike, was to have added even more, lending further coherence to
this conceptually harmonised show - by speaking at the cancelled opening, on
post-traumatic growth.
Whilst not the same as visiting the exhibition in the gallery to see the photos printed on metal (thus enhancing the effect), as a next best option Wall’s images can be viewed online a http://www.magentadreams.site/
