The Lodge, & Am I In Your Way?

Visual Art Exhibition Review | Brian Rope

The Lodge | Amala Groom

Am I In Your Way? | Raquel Ormella

Canberra Contemporary | 3 May – 12 July 2025

Readers who are not familiar with Australia’s national capital city and, in particular, the design and purpose of its central area might like to look at TheWalter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin Design Drawings of the City of Canberra and/or read material about the design, such as thisWikipedia article.

Am I in your way? extends Raquel Ormella’s career-long focus on the visual cultures of protest and resistance. This exhibition takes as its starting point the location of the Canberra Contemporary gallery in which it is on display - at the centre of the Parliamentary Triangle looking out onto Lake Burley Griffin and across it towards and beyond the base of that triangle - as a site to consider past and present formations of national identities. 

The work activates the view down Walter Burley Griffin’s designed sightline between Parliament House and the Australian War Memorial, passing through the centre of the International Flag Display on Commonwealth Place. Drawings, flags and performance works in the exhibition look at how political protestors have used their bodies as direct forms of passive disruption. 

Inked messages on the front or reverse of, or alongside, found vintage Canberra postcards are both entertaining and significant. Likewise, messages on created banners both challenge and amuse us.

Raquel Ormella, 'One bomb vs many' 2025, installation view, 'Am I in your way_', Canberra Contemporary, 2025, ink on found vintage Canberra postcards, dimensions variable. Photo by Brenton McGeachie

Raquel Ormella, 'Am I in your way_', 2025, installation view, Canberra Contemporary, 2025. Photo by Brian Rope

Raquel Ormella, 'Am I in your way_', 2025, installation view, Canberra Contemporary, 2025. Photo by Brenton McGeachie_2

Raquel Ormella, 'future history #1', 2025, installation view, 'Am I in your way_', Canberra Contemporary, 2025,  nylon, 90 x 170cm. Photo by Brenton McGeachie

In an environment where attitudes towards legitimate disruption and protest are changing, this exhibition is a timely exploration of an emerging criminalisation of what might simply be no more than an inconvenience for passers-by or bystanders.

The second exhibition being shown in the adjacent gallery space is The Lodge, named after the Prime Minister’s residence. It is the third moving image work in Amala Groom’s Raised by Wolves series exploring the relationship between alchemy (spirit) and science (matter), following the belief that life is a marriage of these forces, with the human being as the ultimate construct between them.

This excellent 11:11 minutes single-channel video work connects strongly with Groom’s personal history of direct action at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy located within the Parliamentary Triangle, and her many years of political engagement both inside and outside the walls of Parliament House. Her returning to Ngunnawal country to film this artwork is important; it is both ceremonial and cyclical. In doing so, she has reactivated her ancestral songlines (the Aboriginal walking routes that crossed the country, linking important sites and locations), and this resultant autobiographical (in nature) work is a reweaving of both history and the future.

Wearing a typically long and white wedding dress, Groom herself symbolically weaves and unravels a red rope (commonly used as a symbol of protection, unity, and unbreakable bonds) along Anzac Parade, embodying both the colonial structural constraints Indigenous people faced (and still do) and the profound role ancestors play in spirituality, offering guidance and a sense of belonging. The work culminates in her transformation; empowered by the campfire that burns constantly at the Tent Embassy, she is seen running through Parliament House then ultimately vanishing into the bush as a sovereign Wiradyuri woman.

Amala Groom, The Lodge 2025 production still, single channel video. Image credit Ryan Andrew Lee_10

Amala Groom, The Lodge 2025 production still, single channel video. Image credit Ryan Andrew Lee_2

Amala Groom, The Lodge 2025 production still, single channel video. Image credit Ryan Andrew Lee_4

Amala Groom, The Lodge 2025 production still, single channel video. Image credit Ryan Andrew Lee_7

In this work, Groom has reclaimed what we might think of as “the heart of the Australian state” created by all who came after those we now refer to as our First Peoples. For many, many years previously the area of country now within the Parliamentary Triangle was a sacred place used by those First Peoples for corroborees and tribal indigenous gatherings. Visitors to the exhibition should view the entire video, waiting as necessary to watch it from the start, taking in its significant messages, thinking about the significance of various shapes they see, and admiring the very professional performance and film quality. Then read the artist statement and the exhibition essay to understand more fully what they have viewed.

These two exhibitions both present profound and important messages. Together the messages are enhanced and strengthened.

This review is also available on the author's blog here.

BLAZE 2025

Exhibition Review: Visual Art | Brian Rope

BLAZE I Sophia Childs, Sophie Dumaresq, Gabrielle Hall-Lomax, Emeirely Nucifora-Ryan, Brennan O’Brien, Jessika Spencer

Canberra Contemporary I 8 February – 17 April 2025 

This exhibition is an emerging artists’ showcase. Now in its fifteenth iteration, BLAZE presents diverse voices at the beginnings of their art careers. It exhibits bold and thought-provoking artworks in several media. The artists were chosen based on contributions to the vitality of visual art in the ACT region and their exhibitions over the last eighteen months.

Sophia Childs is showing an assortment of delightful works for which she has sewn together irregular shaped pieces of fabric that she has painted on with acrylic. Most of the resultant works are spread out on the walls much as skins removed from a dead person’s or animal’s body might be. But these are not dead animal skins as the works are brightly multi-colourful and most fascinating to explore. Two of them are attached to recycled timber frames standing on cast plaster feet, further adding to their already substantial interest.

Installation view of work by Sophia Childs in BLAZE 2025 at Canberra Contemporary.
Photo by Brenton McGeachie

Sophie Dumaresq, whose works have been seen in a number of Canberra galleries recently is represented here with just one artwork, but it is rather special - a major mixed media performance piece with mechanical components. This anthropomorphic sculptural-performative shark is a major contribution to the artist’s self-appointed role as spokesperson for sympathy towards the Great White Shark. Those who have had an opportunity to watch whilst the artist is animating the shark would, no doubt, have thoroughly enjoyed the performance and, therefore, appreciated the piece and its message even more.

Gabrielle Hall-Lomax is showing eight framed prints, each having been made from scanned medium-format film. As displayed, they are separated into three groups by two piles of archival letters. Several images show us various immediate family members, including the artist herself, in differing and different poses. Roger’s head is obscured, posing a question as to why. Twins had me wondering whether or not the two figures were actually that or were the one person shown twice. Does the answer matter?

Gabrielle Hall-Lomax 'Roger' 2025, medium format film, scanned and printed on archival cotton rag, 60 x 60 cm. Photo by Brenton McGeachie

Gabrielle Hall-Lomax 'Twins' 2025, medium format film, scanned and printed on archival cotton rag, 60 x 60cm Photo courtesy of the artist

Each of these high-quality images is intriguing. Two of them, respectively titled Eyes and Ring, brought me to a stop as I walked around the space, forcing me to look even more closely and think longer about what they were telling me. The letter piles immediately made me want to rifle through them, closely reading and exploring their contents to discern the relationship to the prints. This is a fine storytelling body of work.

Emeirely Nucifora-Ryan is showing a set of six neon bent glass letter sculptures. They change colour (from warm red to icy argon-mercury blue) and shape as they are viewed from different positions in the gallery. A high voltage light beam dances in the complex forms. This is a further development from her previously exhibited and prize-winning glasswork. 

Brennan O’Brien’s four fastidious paintings explore softness and fluidity. They are works to stand before and enjoy as you absorb their content. His eyes, a blue million miles, painted with acrylic on primed plywood, is particularly surreal, a powerful study to stand before, look closely into, and simply enjoy.

Brennan O'Brien, 'His eyes, a blue million miles' 2024, oil on acrylic primed plywood,160 x 120cm. Photo courtesy of the artist

Wiradjuri woman Jessika Spencer has two works. One is constructed from natural and studio dyed raffia, hair, fishing line and a timber frame; the other from kangaroo bones, raffia and coolamon assemblage. Together they are a wonderful reimagining of country, “a utopia free of the effects of colonisation, capitalism and patriarchy.”

Visitors to this excellent show should read the detailed information about each artist’s works in the room sheet as they move around the gallery exploring and enjoying every exhibited piece.

This review is also available on the author's own blog here.

RGB & UNKEMPT COGNITION

Exhibition Review: Visual Art | Brian Rope

RGB | Nicci Haynes

UNKEMPT COGNITION | Ella Barclay

Canberra Contemporary Art Space (CCAS) Lakeside Canberra | 13 July – 14 September 2024

These two exhibitions are both exciting, visual treats to enjoy. The colours are mostly vivid, powerful, almost mesmerising.

Nicci Haynes is an artist based in Kamberri/Canberra. She works in a variety of media, including drawing, performance, print, film, and installation. Her experimental practice is process driven. She is creative in her use of a variety of materials and spontaneous in her approach, frequently recycling technology and odd objects. In RGB this artist expands her investigation of how language and communication intersect and interact across various media.

Haynes is showing just three artworks, but each of them is excellent and, as previously noted, richly colourful. RG-Being is a 1-minute-long digital video which flicks very quickly through a series of photographs by Andrew Sikorski. Each image is full of colour. Each is, I presume, of the same person in a variety of poses wearing, displaying, putting on or taking off brightly coloured but otherwise plain items of clothing, all absolutely in the RGB spectrum.

NICCI HAYNES 'RG-Being' (still 3), 2024, Digital video (photos by Andrew Sikorski), 1’00” duration

Then there is an installation utilising digital videos, TVs, projectors and electronics. A wonderful tower of more colour on numerous monitors (once discarded but now re-used). A constantly changing mosaic – pinks, yellows, blues, oranges, all vying for attention. And the third piece is another installation – a multi-projector projection of more colours - less vibrant, more pastel. Three great artworks.

NICCI HAYNES '255, 255, 255' 2024, Installation (digital videos, TVs, projectors, electronics), dimensions variable, photo by Brenton McGeachie

NICCI HAYNES 'Being Colour' 2024, Installation (multi-projector projection), dimensions variable, Photo by Brenton McGeachie

The room sheet essay by Dr Denise Thwaites is titled Harmless Fun. It makes an interesting suggestion - that the artworks are monumental, but worn, reminding her of a place in Budapest where old Soviet monuments have been torn down and reconfigured. Haynes artworks here ask what we can see in piles of junk. This essay is a fine accompaniment to the exhibition.

Ella Barclay's first institutional Kamberri/Canberra solo exhibition, Unkempt Cognition, features brand-new work created during a residency at ZK/U The Centre for Art and Urbanistics, Berlin, in 2024. The exhibition combines photographs and a series of humorous light installations to investigate basic human experiences inside our networked everyday lives. A world of growing disasters and clumsy automation awaits us in the doom-scroll bed-rotting experience.

Again there is a great deal of vivid colour. Three large inkjets on archival cotton rag from her Enhanced Entanglements series are vibrant, multi-coloured Contemporary abstract creations shouting look at us.

ELLA BARCLAY 'Enhanced Entanglements 1 (Deployments and Abstentions)' 2023, Inkjet on archival cotton rag, 84 x 61.4cm, Photo by Brenton McGeachie

As much as I enjoyed the three prints hanging on a wall, they have to compete for attention with nine installation pieces which are quite fascinating. 

Three large, molded blankets of black acrylic adorn parts of the floorspace. At one end of each piece we see colourful footwear peeking out; the other end reveals parts of blond wigs. Are there bodies hidden under there?

ELLA BARCLAY 'Quiet Serfing 2' 2024, Acrylic, Crocs, blonde wig, beach volleyball, 230 x 120 x 40cm, Photo by Brenton McGeachie

Accompanying the three-dimensional blankets in the space are various assemblages utilising more of the black acrylic, plus LED lights, electronics, aluminium, silicon, hand blown glass and other materials. Some of these pieces are also on the floor, others suspended from the ceiling. Above them all a wonderful and lengthy tangle of LED silicon lights delivers multiple colours that reflect delicious patterns on the shiny surfaces of the black acrylic artworks. Once again, rich colours in abstract patterns.

ELLA BARCLAY 'Unkempt Cognition' (Canberra Contemporary Art Space exhibition installation), 2024, Photo by Brenton McGeachie

Another fine room sheet essay, by William Kherbek, discusses the distinction between information and knowledge. It tells us that “Barclay’s works regularly explore the edge cases of presence, the body is present, or has been present, its traces are visible, the edges of its intentions are visible if not entirely intelligible”. I encourage all to visit the two exhibitions and to read both the essays, both before and after seeing the artworks. They are also available on the CCA website.

All contributors to the two exhibitions have delivered a great show.

This review is also available on the author's blog here.