BEYOND

Exhibition Review: Visual Arts | Brian Rope

BEYOND: An art tonic, making sense of this discombobulating time by Kati Gorgenyi, Toni Hassan, John Pratt, and Ujala Aftab

Chapel Gallery, Charles Sturt University | 7 – 23 May 2026

We read, hear and view true, distorted, opionated and fake news stories every day. We struggle to make sense of so much that reaches us via newspapers, radios, TV broadcasts, the diverse accounts on all the different social media platforms, and even in the views of family and friends. Are you distressed by the state of our world and the assault of saturating, doomsday news?

The four artists in this exhibition, Kati Gorgenyi, Toni Hassan, John Pratt, and Ujala Aftab, each grappled with what it meant for them to be living in the information age and to be perplexed by the speed of environmental and political change. They used diverse materials to address the complex issues.

Their joint project was conceived in 2024 with shared questions: 'How do we sit with what we are seeing and hearing?’ and ‘How might we move beyond grief?’’ Newspapers became a common material for them - referencing news and the notion of global legacy. The four artists found comfort in talking about ‘The News’ together and about different processes they were exploring and adopting. At that time, all four were Canberra-based. Hassan has since relocated to Adelaide but continued producing works for the show - and has taken a leading role pulling it all together.

 

John Pratt says that, for him, “overwhelmed is too strong a word, but we come into contact continuously with ‘The News’ as a field, pulled into a mode of distress. If you're empathetic to some of the things that are happening, it’s hard to contend with or accommodate.” His work seeks to juxtapose natural elements, digital codes and media as a way of exploring the impact of technology on the way we understand our place in the world.

 

Pratt has contributed woodcut and collage pieces.

John Pratt - Passage, woodcut and collage work, 2025.

Kati Gorgenyi says she found herself in long periods of avoidance, when she just could not bear seeing and hearing about the state of the world, destruction from all directions and the way people in power present themselves, and how the media reports. She then began playing with newspapers - altering the material, making sculptures, and painting with an encaustic medium. She recycled, reformed and reshaped the material seeking to create an alternative environment.

Gorgenyi’s contributions are wax, pigment and newspaper pieces plus an installation of pots, newspapers and bamboo constructions. Seeing a small and peaceful part the outside world through the window behind her installation was somehow incongruous.

Kati Gorgenyi - Beyond 3 – wax, pigment, newspaper, 2026

(installation shot – Brian Rope)

Kati Gorgenyi - Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow

- Installation: Pots, newspaper, bamboo, glue, 2026

Kati Gorgenyi - Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

(installation shot showing outside world behind – Brian Rope) 

Ujala Aftab is a watercolour and textile artist who has been working with pattern and repetition, embroidering on transfer prints of newspapers. On her Instagram account, she describes her artwork very simply as Experimental Embroidery Art.

Aftab is showing four mixed media pieces.

Ujala Aftab - Detail of Weariness – Mixed media: embroidery on canvas with acrylic and ink, 2024. 

Toni Hassan also speaks about the news. “It enters us, the drama, the conflict. It can change us, as stories do. I have, for some years, been thinking about ways to express the impacts and how art can help me make sense of human history over time. I wanted to go beyond doomsday narratives, to something perhaps richer. I’d also become increasingly intentional about reducing my news consumption, after being a journalist and opinion writer for many years. Drawing became an accessible way to make sense of things, begin to frame history and my place in it, and also meditate on the themes that surfaced. Rocks became a motif for the heaviness of the world and ancientness.”

Hassan contributes a range of coloured pencil on paper artworks. They are complex and need thorough exploration to maximise the impact each has on us, just as the barrage of news and commentary from both traditional and social media that surrounds us every day also impacts us.

Toni Hassan – The grief and sense of loss that I often attribute to a failure in my personality is actually a feeling of emptiness, where a beautiful and strange otherness should be encountered / A short history of alienation, pencil on paper, 2024

Top: Too much to chew (information without integration frustrates wisdom) – pencil on paper, 2026

Bottom: The woman who ate too much news – pencil on paper, 2026

(Installation shot by Brian Rope of two works by Toni Hassan)

This is an exhibition well worth visiting to thoroughly explore the messages conveyed.

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

Kooragang Island & Ngulagambilanha (“On Returning”)

Brian Rope | Mixed Media & Photography

Kooragang Island & Ngulagambilanha (“On Returning”) | James Rhodes & Jessika Spencer

Photo Access | 4 July – 3 August 2024

These two new exhibitions at Photo Access are very different but share something significant. In his Kooragang Island show artist James Rhodes challenges traditional representations of that island’s landscapes, on unceded lands of the Awabakal and Worimi peoples, and invites us to appreciate and respect the delicate balance of its remarkable wetlands’ environment. In Ngulagambilanha, Wiradjuri artist Jessika Spencer intimately shares details of Aboriginal cultural practices and, through them, explores her cultural identity.

Through her varied art forms, Spencer explores her cultural identity. She does this via photography, poetry, writing, activism and both contemporary and traditional weaving. She is a qualified photographer with years of experience in creating visual imagery, collaborating with her local community, and travelling for her artistic work. Here she shares with us her photography and some fibre art pieces. The imagery shows us moments of cultural practices such as ceremonies, weaving and gathering. The photos are straightforward, colourful and pleasing to look at.

An image showing an Aboriginal scarred tree healing in Wiradjuri Country is most pleasing because of the qualities of the light in the area of bushland.

Healing, Wiradjuri Country, 2023, inkjet print © Jessika Spencer

Another shot shows the hands of an Aboriginal matriarch wearing clothing displaying the well-known Aboriginal symbol and holding gathered lemon myrtle.

Matriarch Aunty Helen, Gathering Lemon Myrtle Gumbaynggir Country, 2024, inkjet print © Jessika Spencer

The artist’s two sculptural pieces use contemporary weaving techniques employed by Aboriginal people and are also most pleasing to the eye. One of her phots also shows a piece of weaving.

Ngurra Wall Hanging, NgunnawalNgambri Country, 2023 © Jessika Spencer

For Spencer, being an Aboriginal woman, culture and art go hand in hand. This exhibition reveals something of that to us.

Multidisciplinary artist Rhodes is known for his photomedia, painting and sculpture. In 2022, Rhodes earned a PhD, the subject of which was the meaning of materiality in photographic practice. Currently, he is a lecturer in Photography at The University of Newcastle.

In this exhibition Rhodes combines abstract photography, hand-coloured prints and projection to reveal something of his perception of the world around him. From a distance as I walked into the gallery at Canberra’s centre for photography, film, video, and media arts I wondered where the photography was, but as I moved closer to the first works I saw that the underlying images in them were photographs. Questions I then heard others asking included why are there red crosses over the pictures? Why are they framed with aluminium foil? Why are there differently sized white borders on most of the works, sometimes not on all sides of the pieces?

Speaking with the artist as we stood alongside one of the works ensured I gained some understanding. Photographers who worked with film back in the day very probably marked up their proof sheets for printing with hand-applied coloured grease pencil lines, thus creating a lasting reference. So, Rhodes is incorporating subtle symbols and ambiguous motifs into his works. The use of aluminium foil is an artful reference to the clearing, draining, filling and dredging that significantly impacted the island landscape. His blank white spaces are intended to make us aware of the adjacent areas we cannot see.

The artist’s photos have been overpainted, but they clearly are there. Belle Beasley’s room sheet essay elaborates and is well worth reading after viewing the exhibition – or whilst you are there if you need assistance to interpret the artist’s messages.

Wet Toes, 2024, oil paint and silver gelatin on board with Aluminium © James Rhodes 

Stationary, 2024, oil paint and silver gelatin on board with Aluminium © James Rhodes 

A Slow Evening, 2023, inkjet print -  © James Rhodes

The good news is that the Kooragang Wetlands have progressively been very much restored, redressing the loss of fisheries, shorebirds, threatened species and other wildlife habitat in the Hunter Estuary due to clearing, draining and filling over the past 200 years.

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

All my memories are mistranslations

Exhibition Review: Mixed Media | Brian Rope

All my memories are mistranslations | Omar Musa

Humble House Gallery, Canberra | 4 May – 2 June 2024

Does this artist need introduction? He is a Bornean-Australian author, visual artist, poet and woodcutter from Queanbeyan, Australia - well-known to many as a rapper. In recent times he has been creating music and visual art in the two very different places he lives between - Malaysian Borneo and Brooklyn, New York City.

Omar Musa has recently been in Australia talking about his latest album which touches on environment, culture, religious identity, and mortality. And to bring us this solo exhibition All my memories are mistranslations - comprising Cyanotypes, Linocuts and Woodcuts on a variety of materials, plus a Cast Glass sculpture. The largest cyanotypes are 70cm x 95cm.

The diverse works tell us much provided we explore them closely and think about the messages Musa is seeking to share. As with the album mentioned above, the artworks look at cultural and environmental matters. And much more. The show’s title reveals a starting point for our explorations – it’s about the artist’s misinterpreted memories. His artist statement says he has found out, years later, that he misheard stories his grandparents told him, that “crucial things were lost in translation.”

The artist goes on to tell us that in this exhibition he wanted “to lean into dissonance, these spaces lacking coherence; find comfort in contradiction.” So, he sought to make a playful, unsettling world inhabited by ghosts.

Musa’s poetry piece with the same title as this show makes other references to ghosts, including one posing the question Am I so different from a hoax ghost photographer of a past age? One artwork, titled Tumbled Dry Brooklyn Ghost Boy, includes Bornean boys sailing across a coin-operated washing machine in Brooklyn.

Tumbled Dry Brooklyn Ghost Boy – Cyanotype, 58cm H x 46cm W © Omar Musa

A huge Woodcut has an equally huge title – The river is a keris / a sacred dagger / cast from meteoric iron & scrapyard bike frame nickel / patterned skin a trillion times folded with rain & song / whetted on white hot sun. Additional words on the artwork read Battle Cry or Requiem? We Buried Our Eyes In a Storm. So much to see, to read, to consider.

The river is a keris / a sacred dagger / cast from meteoric iron & scrapyard bike frame nickel / patterned skin a trillion times folded with rain & song / whetted on white hot sun - Woodcut, ink on blackout cloth, 148.59cm H x 396cm W © Omar Musa

Another smaller Woodcut has a very simple title but again has much to examine, clearly telling us that our memories are not always correct; indeed far more likely to distort over time. Perhaps, like eels, our memories can swim backwards by reversing the direction of the wave?

Bubu – Woodcut, ink on paper, 61cm H x 122cm, 2022 (reprint) © Omar Musa

A simple drawing conveys a familiar message about the way some folk converse with friends in their dreams. The resultant Linocut’s title adds further information.

He Said, “You Need to Relax, Bro” – Linocut, ink on paper 36.5cm H x 34.5cm W © Omar Musa

It is unsurprising that in many artworks, this poet/rapper again uses words. In his Smoke Over Sulu cyanotype there are words which, I believe, relate to Islamic prayer, a Malayic oral poetry form and how speakers of different native languages use a common language to converse. The background scene shows smoke rising. Is it environmental smoke? Was it caused by a terrorist attack? Something else?

Smoke Over Sulu 2 – Cyanotype 58cm H x 46cm W © Omar Musa

Another Cyanotype, Too Hard to Say, has no words on it but, nevertheless, speaks most eloquently.

Too Hard To Say – Cyanotype, 58cm H x 46cm W © Omar Musa

In an introductory statement about the exhibition, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah says “Omar is a cipher. Everything is a signpost for something more, different eyes find different truths.” If you visit this exhibition, your eyes - and your minds I expect - will very likely find different truths to me and to others who have explored it.

This review is also available on the author's blog here. And a shorter version is on the Canberra City News website here.

 

Terra: (un)becoming

Exhibition Review: Photography | Brian Rope

Terra: (un)becoming | Multiple Artists

Photo Access | 7 – 20 December 2023

Terra: (un)becoming is the outcome of Photo Access’ annual “Concept to…” workshop series. After nine months of mentorship from local photographers Sari Sutton, Mark Mohell and Gabrielle Hall-Lomax, participants were to create new bodies of work. 

The exhibition is described as reflecting on “the urgent need for the community to reassess connections with each other and the environment under the threat of climate crisis and complex global challenges.” The idea of becoming/unbecoming is defined as seeking “to challenge the expectation that we, as humans, must keep striving to become something or someone.” 

The 26 participating artists are Annette Fisher, Zoe Haynes-Smith, Saskia Haalebos, Toni Hicks, Adam Henry, Nathan Hughes, Joanne Hutchinson, Natalie Finney, Lynne Flemons, Alison Ford, Yasmin Idriss, Leanne Joyce, Diana Pearce, Fernanda Pedroso, Julia Platt, Caroline Lemerle, Margi Martin, Peter Murphy, Helena Romaniuk, Corin Rossouw, Christina Seccombe, Roger Skinner, Martin Skrydstrup, Sari Sutton, Ed Telfer, and Ruby Wilde. 

There are, in my view, too many diverse artists showing too many diverse artworks. Whilst there are some worthwhile pieces to examine, too many competing pieces does not always help. The title of one piece by Natalie Finney is another word that might be used to describe the problem.

Discord, 2023 - © Natalie Finney

I confess to being surprised that the works of all three workshop groups were being exhibited since only one workshop was actually styled as Concept to Exhibition. The other two were Concept to Portfolio and Concept to Photobook. Whilst it would be good to somehow also publicly share the results achieved by participants in those two groups, perhaps the works exhibited here should have only been those by the Concept to Exhibition participants.

Amongst the 63 works, there is considerable variety - silver gelatin and inkjet prints and “darkroom fragments” (some in boxes, others in a white lacquer tray), mixed media and collage, “photographic paper” on cardboard, commercially printed and handmade photobooks, a 3-drawer black box containing prints and a field diary, and even a screenprint displayed in negative sleeves. Exploring it all properly takes considerable time. 

Ed Telfer’s small handmade photobook maquettes are a delight to hold and look through. Lynne Flemons’ mixed media and collage on paper and Julia Platt’s print on cotton voile embellished with embroidery threads and glass beads are both pleasing. Alison Ford’s “photographic paper on cardboard” works are different and interesting. Corin Rossouw’s prints of minimalist images are pleasing. Fernanda Pedroso’s inkjet prints are high quality. Nathan Hughes has created a colourful collage.

IT DOESN’T SOUND RIGHT, 2023 by Fernanda Pedroso – installation shot

Profiterolé of Doom, 2023 by Nathan Hughes – installation shot

Caroline Lemerle’s set of inkjet prints Transient – At the end there’s always a beginning, 2022 (made before the workshop?) successfully shows her concept. I was able to discuss the works with her on site and learn about her thought processes. That emphasised for me the lack of detailed information available to viewers about each exhibitor’s concept – at least some accompanying words about what the artists were “unbecoming” would add to the experience.

Roger Skinner’s A Box of Nudes, 2023 challenged me to ask why images of nudes are sometimes hidden away - here inside wooden boxes (but visible). I understand he had more boxes, some plastic, that were not exhibited. I don’t know whether other artists also had works not included, but it is puzzling. In contrast, Adam Henry has 10 inkjet prints in his displayed series Remnant: A Photographic Journey of the What is Left Behind, 2023.

Another exhibit utilising a box is Martin Skrydstrup’s The Black Box of Climate Science, 2023. The most interesting item in the 3-compartment black box is a field diary but, as with various other works in the show, I wanted to know more about it than just its contents.

Yasmin Idriss has 8 works displayed. One is a photobook of flower images from her 2022 solo exhibition of the same name - “Delicate Delights” - at Strathnairn Homestead Gallery. Another Idriss photobook - “Journal” - is of considerably more interest because of the subject matter.

Ruby Wilde’s zine is the work I most appreciated. Exposure Therapy Vol. 1, 2023, authentically portrays the artist and her ways of interacting with the world in what, clearly, was a most therapeutic way for the artist. We should all have the courage to use our art in such a way.

Exposure Therapy Vol. 1, 2023 - Installation shot

Annette Fisher’s handmade photobooks are complex and not easy to explore because of the way they are displayed. Margi Martin’s “darkroom fragments” were somehow more interesting for me than her whole prints.

Catch the show if you can and take the necessary time to explore it all.

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

PALIMPSEST

Exhibition Review: Textiles, mixed media, ephemeral artworks, installations, artist books & photobooks | Brian Rope

PALIMPSEST | Victoria Cooper, Maggie Hollins, Doug Spowart

BAINZ Gallery, Wangaratta Library | 5 – 28 August 2023

The Winton Wetlands are at Winton North in north-eastern Victoria - near to Benalla. I’ve never visited them, but after viewing this exhibition and speaking with two of the artists about it, I have some understanding of what these wetlands now are like.

Three artists from Benalla have collaborated to produce and display a wonderful visual exhibition inspired by the layered human and natural history and contemporary renewal of the wetlands. They have sought to associate the altered landscape with the concept of a palimpsest – one dictionary I checked gives the meaning as “a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing” or as “something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form”. The artists are contributing to discussion of different, yet overlapping, stories of the wetlands.

The restoration currently happening at these wetlands has been described as a project of national scientific, environmental and cultural significance. It is the largest wetlands restoration project in the southern hemisphere and has been ranked as a 'wetland of distinction' by the Society of Wetland Scientists.

Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart have been involved in the arts as practitioners, teachers and commentators for a lengthy time, including having residencies at Bundanon. Maggie Hollins has qualifications in ceramics, leads art workshops and makes music with her fiddle. Unsurprisingly therefore, each and every artwork displayed is of a high standard.

There are unique, handmade textural and sculptural artworks by Hollins that use a diverse variety of materials – including found small branches, knotted bark, dyed cotton thread, solar and rust dyed cotton fabric, metal rings, and found grasses. Some are accompanied by postcard sized images of the same artworks “displayed” on site in the wetlands. Those images were a team effort – Hollins operated the camera, Cooper was location scout and camera assistant, and Spowart did the lighting and Director of Photography duties. 

Hollins montage of works - Photo Spowart

Hollins 'Drifting on a Current' – Photo - a collaboration

Spowart and Cooper commonly work collaboratively with each other and their extensive experience of doing so is clearly on display here in their further collaboration with Hollins. In this show, we see Cooper’s images of Spowart taking other images – and Spowart’s images of Cooper taking other images. They have described the resultant diptychs as Witnessing. In Witnessing winter the smaller of two images shows Cooper photographing a wintry scene along a track, whilst the larger image in the diptych is the photo that she took. Witnessing The Lunette adds a  further witness in that one photographer’s shadow is included in the image of the other photographer photographing the scene.

Cooper+Spowart - 'Witnessing The Lunette' diptych

When visitors stand and look at each diptych they, in turn, become further witnesses.

When we view Hollins piece titled Harmony - small branches, knotted bark and dyed cotton thread, we can also see an image of it at the wetlands being held by the artist with a view of the wetlands behind her. Visitors to the gallery are, therefore, seeing the artwork itself together with a view of how it looked within a wetlands space. This too is “witnessing”. 

Hollins with 'Harmony'  - Photo Spowart

There are also larger standalone photographic prints by Cooper & Spowart conveying stories of witnessing, magnificent 3-metre-wide concertina photobooks by Spowart displayed folded out and attached to the wall, plus artist books and poetry by Cooper.

In a foreword to her artist book A Work in Progress, Cooper says “I have an ongoing exploration of desire paths created by animals and the marks on the land made by …. trees, water and wind”. Over time ….. these agents of change create a palimpsest….”

Winton North Road with Vicky - Photo Spowart

Doug at Ashmead's Swamp - Photo Cooper

Spowart 'Once was' + 'Story Trees' closeup – Photo Spowart

 

Cooper 'A work in progress' (artist book) from the video by Spowart

Cooper reveals a further strength in her artist’s arsenal through her poem which relates to the Witnessing winter diptych mentioned earlier.

Cooper+Spowart-'Witnessing winter' diptych

The entire exhibition all comes together splendidly, most successfully conveying the messages the artists want visitors to hear. It is a fine illustration of how a number of artists can collaborate and produce a body of diverse work which speaks clearly and loudly to those willing to listen, as well as look at the individual pieces. It is clear that all three collaborators are consummate artists.

If you are in the area, or able to travel to Wangaratta, whilst this exhibition remains in place, it is well worth seeing. You might also visit the Winton Wetlands any time you are in the area.

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

VIEW 2023

Photomedia, Mixed media, Animation | Brian Rope

VIEW 2023 | SEVEN ARTISTS (Emily April O’Neill, Aidan Gageler, Harry Merriman, Gabriela Renee, Aaron Sun, April Widdup and Chenfei Xiao)

Photo access | 2 Mar - 15 Apr 2023

The 2023 edition of VIEW (an annual exhibition celebrating emerging talent) delves into the themes of cultural identity and the queer body. Showcasing seven emerging artists from the ACT region, it includes a diverse array of multimedia installations, traditional and non-traditional photo media, and animation.

Each artist presents a personal exploration of self, drawing upon shared experiences and perspectives in social, digital, and environmental realms. PhotoAccess Director Wouter Van de Voorde says "Their work highlights the strength and diversity of emerging artists in our region, and we are thrilled to provide a platform for their voices to be heard."

Multimedia artist Chenfei Xiao uses digital and augmented reality technologies. Here we see a discussion of a personal experience living as a queer Chinese Buddhist. The resultant three portraits fascinate us as we explore them, discovering features of that experience and delighting in Xiao’s various identities. I encourage you to spend time with these works before reading any explanatory material about them.

Chenfei Xiao, Guan Yin Help You (III), production still, 2022, augmented reality headset rendered images printed on gator boards, 59.4 x 84.1 x 0.5 cm

Aaron Sun is a new media and technology artist. Here he uses 3D modelling, virtual reality photogrammetry and more to create an excellent video work investigating racism in Australia. Watching it forces us to ask ourselves what we might do to remove our own biases. 

Aaron Sun, White Australia 1 (still from video, provided)

Abstract artist Aidan Gageler works on film, but never uses a camera as part of the production process. Happenstance played a major role in determining the end product. The collection of six works here takes us through various senses, emotions and colours (or lack of). Our responses to one work, Old Skin, will reflect how often we have each seen ageing skin in our long (or short) lives. 

Aidan Gageler, Old Skin, 2022, dye sublimation on aluminium

Interdisciplinary artist Emily April O’Neill has viewed how today’s modern technology has affected our lives. How are our public and private lives being modified? Are our personal behaviours, our confidential communications and even what defines us as individuals being permanently transformed beyond recognition? 

Emily April O'Neill, Between Bodies & Screens - interacting with installation image by Maria Koulouris

Harry Merriman’s video artwork Landscape of Light explores physical space and investigates how the alteration of our rural environment through human impact then affects our sense of self. It invites us to consider how various things change our views of the landscapes we are amongst.

Harry Merriman, The Landscape of Light, 2019, Still from Video

Multidisciplinary artist April Widdup explores place and isolation from a queer perspective, focussing on their art’s potential to challenge. They are showing two pieces in memory of Queer lives lost to hate-crimes and suicide. These artworks use numerous materials, including recycled wood, mirrors, hot sculpted glass, LED lights, vinyl and laminated sheet glass.

April Widdup, You lived, and I will remember that (II) (detail), 2022, [In memory of Queer lives lost to hate-crimes and suicide], recycled wood, hot sculpted glass, monitor, mdf, laminated sheet glass, 94 x 141.5 x 163 cm.

Through their immersive installation pieces, Widdup and Gabriela Renee explore complex cultural and personal narratives and challenge critical thinking around identity, mobility, and place.

Gabriela Renee - Gedara Yanava Going Home - installation image by Maria Koulouris

There are points along our journey through this exhibition where we are invited to get down amongst the work, temporarily becoming part of it. Quite near the floor, I peered through a small hole and saw another face looking back at me surrounded by names, including Devanny Cardiel, a transsexual woman ambassador for the state of Guanajuato in Mexico, and Disaya Smith, the 36th Trans American killed in 2021.

Uncomfortably on my back, head inside a space, I immersed myself into Widdup’s everchanging scene. Looking at other visitors doing this, and doing it ourselves, adds an extra dimension to our experience.

This excellently curated (by Gabrielle Hall-Lomax) exhibition of diverse works, and accompanying publication, is challenging to think about. Leaving, I wondered how I’d review it. I needed some time to digest what I had viewed before writing this. The artists should be proud of their work and we should look forward to seeing each of them develop their art.

This review was first published by The Canberra Times on page 10 of Panorama and online on 25/03/23 here. It is also available on the author's blog here.

SPIRITS, PERMEATING ECOLOGY, POISONOUS

 Photography, Mixed Media | Brian Rope

SPIRITS | B-Dam Pictures (NSW)

PERMEATING ECOLOGY | REMI SICILIANO

POISONOUS | ELLIS HUTCH

Photo Access | 26 May – 25 Jun

 

Over five years, B-Dam Pictures (artists Anthony Sillavan and Stephanie Sheppard) used a motion-sensor camera to obtain a series of what effectively are self-portraits of Australian wildlife. They suggest Spirits is the native animals themselves revealing their habits, pleasures and dangers - about their tenuous life existence and, by extension, our own fragility.

 

B-Dam Pictures - Self Portrait 6

The sense of motion is more obvious in some images than others. Which is best – a greater or lesser sense of motion? Contemplating that, I realised it was not always obvious what had triggered the camera.

Is that a shadow of a bird in flight that triggered the camera? Another shot has the feeling of being a pinhole camera image, even though I know it was not. And in a third shot, at first glance I thought the featured animal was a log.

One shot of a dam has an animal’s tail disappearing out of the frame. Another shows the same dam with no clear evidence of an animal at all. There is much to see and contemplate in this fine set of images.

Remi Siciliano practices “Ecological Image-Making”, her methodology for embracing and celebrating all the different organisms, materials and forces at play within her work. Collaborative interactions entangle divisions between artist, organism, material, subject, object and landscape. She dissolves these categories as we know them.

In Permeating Ecology, Siciliano has intentionally relinquished technical control in her image making; instead playfully collaborating with other organisms and natural processes to produce her photographs.

Fungal networks have grown through 35mm negatives documenting landscapes, while moisture softened and encouraged the film emulsion to peel. The images reveal meeting points of growth and decomposition.

Remi Siciliano - Plexus, 2021

Although very different to B-Dam Pictures works - large rather than small, and abstract rather than documentary - these artworks also are great.

 

Remi Siciliano - Image 2

I recently read of the “strange allure” of fungi and how it has always captured the imagination. An ecologist has described fungi as the "third forgotten kingdom" behind flora and fauna and said there is much to be discovered about their vital role in our ecosystems.

By using the playful techniques described above, Siciliano has created “strangely alluring” images. Fungi growing through negatives is the starting point for artworks revealing things we would otherwise have never seen – except, possibly, in our imaginations.

Ellis Hutch combines photography, drawing, animation, sound and projection. This resultant exhibition, Poisonous, investigates the microscopic world of our waterways. Hutch navigates the complexities of the ‘health’ of those waterways.

She questions how people establish social relationships and transform their environments to create inhabitable spaces. Recently, she has been paying close attention to the place she lives and works, unceded Ngunnawal (also spelt Ngunawal) and Ngambri country, investigating the effects of ‘invasive’ humans and other species on the Molonglo River. Here, she has done that by combining large-scale drawing and video projection.

The charcoal drawings by Hutch are, indeed, large and quite arresting - not simply because of their scale. Some might even say “awe and wonder” to describe their reactions when first entering the gallery space through a dark curtain. With a video projecting moving digital images on to the drawings, the works become an installation. 

We see glimpses of the molecular structure of minerals and microbes that are both toxic poisons and useful contributors to the ecosystem. This is art, successfully revealing a realm invisible to our eyes – a place critical to our survival.

 

Ellis Hutch - Blackmtnpeninsulaboatramp

Each artist is curious about the processes that drive the varied eco-systems of our planet. Each has employed a distinctive method to investigate the natural world’s intricacies.

This review was published on page 10 of Panorama in the Canberra Times of 16/6/22 and online here. It is also available on the author's blog here.