Punk, Romantic

Visual Art | Brian Rope

Punk, Romantic | Sophie Dumaresq

CCAS Manuka | 6– 15 December 2024 (11am–5pm, Friday-Sunday)

Punk, Romantic is the debut solo exhibition by Sophie Dumaresq, a recent graduate of the ANU School of Art + Design (SoA+D). She was selected for the prestigious Hatched: National Graduate Show 2024 at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, is participating in Next Wave’s 2024/25 Kickstart residency program, and is the 2024 artist-in-residence at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, having received the 2023 CCAS ANU SoA+D Emerging Artists Support Scheme Mentorship and Exhibition Award. 

I first became aware of Dumaresq in March 2020 when I saw her work The Hairy Panic, a significant part of a broader exhibition at the Nishi Gallery, for which she received an ACT Arts Award. Sadly, that exhibition was taken down early because of COVID-19. Her artworks in it featured tumbleweeds she hand-made from chemically processed and hand-dyed human hair and painted pink steel. One work was later a finalist in the Mullins Australian Conceptual Photography Prize, another a finalist in the Goulburn Art Prize. 

Fast forward to 2024. At the beginning of this year View 2024, Photo Access’s annual showcase of emerging photo-media artists from the ACT and surrounding regions, included three Dumaresq artworks – a digital print & mixed media piece, a digital video and an installation comprising a digital video, an expanse of fluffy pink carpet, cow pillows and a beanbag. 

Now, at the close of this year, Dumaresq has her debut solo show. Dumaresq has created a structure in which a divided cow’s skull with a jaw cast of recycled ocean plastics is connected mechanically to a unicycle generating chewing actions as she pedals it whilst attempting to stay balanced. She sees it as a robot which uses her brain as its microprocessor.

Dumaresq was mentored by performance artist Stelarc in 2023 as part of the Creative Australia and Creative New Zealand Digital Leadership fellowship. An essay by Stelarc accompanying the room sheet tells us The multimedia, interdisciplinary and performative projects of Sophie Dumaresq are about a personal sensibility that combines the human, the animal and the machinic in permutations and combinations that are uncanny and surreal. Simultaneously conceptually driven, embodied and performed, but also with an awareness of the potency of the documented image. Her projects and performances are heroic acts in that she is audacious and undaunted in realising her ideas. And in her ecological awareness and inclusion of the animal, there is a more astute understanding of the ecological systems of both the natural and the technological.

The structure, CowPunk, takes centre stage in the exhibition space, securely held in place. Visitors can examine it close up and explore the diverse elements from which it is constructed. Another exhibit is a looped GIF – if that meme term is unfamiliar you can read about it here. And on the walls of the gallery are remote shutter-controlled artist self-portraits, in which she is balancing on the seat. Sometimes a friend is standing alongside holding the robot.

The location for the images is a rock ledge adjacent to the ocean – chosen because it is a place of wonderful childhood memory, a place where her dad took her as a baby in his arms, and of which she has photos. The first attempt to create the images proved difficult because of the strength of the wind at the time, so Dumaresq and her friend returned very early the next morning and were rewarded with a beautiful sky featuring, again, pink.

The Punk Rock Idle, Attempt Two, Yuin Country, Australia, untitled #4, Punk Romantic, 2024 

The Punk Rock Idle, Attempt Two, Yuin Country, Australia, untitled #2, Punk Romantic, 2024 Remote shutter-controlled artist self-portrait 

Behind-the-scenes self-portrait with Emma Rani Hodges, Punk, Romantic, 2024

I expect we will see more of CowPunk as the artist seeks to further realise what she wants to achieve using it.

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

 

Acts of Co-Creation

Photography, Photoart | Brian Rope

Acts of Co-Creation | Sammy Hawker

Mixing Room Gallery | Until 2 July 2021

Sammy Hawker is a visual artist who was noticed early when one of her works was selected for the 2010 ‘Capture the Fade’ exhibition. Since then, Hawker has achieved a Bachelor of Visual Arts (First Class Honours), Sydney College of the Arts (2015), had a solo exhibition ‘Dieback’ (2019), participated in the ANU School of Art & Design Bundian Way Arts Exchange (2020), and received an artsACT Homefront grant to complete a body of work (2020). She is a current recipient of the PhotoAccess Dark Matter darkroom residency program, with an exhibition in the Huw Davies Gallery scheduled for late 2021.

The works in this exhibition have been created in Yuin Country, Ngarigo Country, and Ngunawal Country. Whilst visiting each site, Hawker took a few rolls of film and collected small samples of water, soil, eucalyptus bark and flowers. The show features a stunning collection of works employing pigment inks, emulsions and silver nitrate.

In her process statement for the exhibition, Hawker speaks of time defined by silences – whilst standing in a once-familiar landscape while the ash of a torched ecosystem floated through the air; looking in awe at critically endangered snow-gums; living alone in a city under global lockdown. She reveals that silences led her to practise more active listening; that the exhibition results “from recognising and celebrating the quieter but no less potent agency of the more-than human”.

Broulee Sunset © Sammy Hawker

Hawker also speaks of a newly formed relationship with Ngunawal custodian Tyronne Bell. As a non-Indigenous Australian, she reached out to Bell to learn more about the sites she was working with. Walking with him on Country helped her see more.

Dark Crystals © Sammy Hawker

For each print, we are told what indigenous land it was created on. There are a few traditional landscapes, some composites, and many that reveal their negatives having been processed in solutions that include a variety of waters containing diverse elements.

Murramarang NP #1  © Sammy Hawker

When processing films Hawker uses waters collected from the sites where the films were exposed. So, salt fractals form across works created with ocean water, whilst ripples appear on photographs developed with muddy lake water. Storm clouds photographed from Mount Ainslie were developed with rainwater that fell later that day.

Near Rosedale © Sammy Hawker

Experiments with the technique of chromatography add another aspect to the exhibition. Hawker mixed samples of matter with sodium hydroxide looking for the substance “to visually express itself over filter paper soaked with silver nitrate”. She says “Acts of Co-Creation are never predictable, and the resulting images can be both unsettling and thrilling. To me the image becomes alive; humming with the presence of the site itself.”

Scribbly Gum Bark Chromatogram © Sammy Hawker

Much background information is provided - about snow gums being affected by dieback; about how and why a water bowl tree was created to store water.

A centrepiece of the exhibition, Ngungara (Lake George) #1, was taken after rains had temporarily filled the lake. Ngungara means ‘flat water’ and the lake is a significant site for the Ngunawal. From a roll of medium format film, it was processed with a jar of muddy water collected from the edge of the lake.

Ngungara (Lake George) #1 © Sammy Hawker

Also displayed is a collection of the bottled waters, plus seaweed film developer and such things as casuarina pods, ground up bark and lichen. It is an excellent exhibition where I spent a lot of time taking it in. I was delighted to see that many works had been sold, some of the proceeds benefitting Aboriginal corporations in the Yuin, Ngarigo, and Ngunawal Countries. I congratulate the purchasers and Hawker, and strongly recommend readers to visit this exhibition.

This review was first published in The Canberra Times here. It is also on the author's own blog here.