FERRET 5
The final
ferret
This
piece of writing is a collaborative venture between the writers Elizabeth
Rankin and Lisa Sharp. On this occasion we met in real time, divided the room
sheet into crumbs and ferreted out different artists, where we could, to speak
with them about their work, and where we couldn’t, we speculated, writing from
our own rooms and emailing each other. ER is Elizabeth Rankin and LS
is Lisa Sharp.
LS: Over this last week and
weekend, the relentless pitter-patter of ferret feet, chatter and activity culminated
with the fifth and final exhibition of the FERRET project. The steady rhythm and
overlapping steps of the dance have played out - artists have left, works have
been taken down, and the drama and buzz have faded. Monday morning comes and
presumably the space is now largely vacated, still and silent.
In the imagined silence, a
passing observation from the opening night; nowhere on the room sheet yet still
flanking the entrance was an errant FERRET work trespassing on from the show
before. Isaac Nixon’s OF[f c]O[urse]
seemed to have prophetically transitioned from function into form, under the
spell of the gallery. This prompted questions. What was it doing there still? Was
it a row of neatly parked public bicycles? Or art object to be gazed at? When
did the objects slip from one state of meaning to another? From the genesis of
this exhibition series from FAIR ISLE through to FERAL and now FERRET these underlying
questions of slippage have persisted, as artists manipulate their materials and
contextualize their works. One moment, the genteel order of knitting, the next,
wildness and beasts –a conflated state of transgressive (or aggressive) domesticity
that continues to characterize many of the works, where everyday totems are
activated so as to reveal or suggest alternate narratives.
Facing the doorway squarely and
frontally is a solemn tribute to absent space. Lyn Heazlewood’s work presents a
finger tipped, tactile geometrically formed ceramic, set on a plinth. The work explores
an expressively imagined (but actually mapped) triangular void-space, as the
plaque on the plinth declares ‘remembering
the potential missing section of the space’. The marks and moulding of the
artist’s fingers over the surface evokes a hand patting and searching in the
darkness of a cave.
…And now here comes Liz, in the
company of a ferret …
ER:
I have revisited the ferret’s run, dear reader and am now guided by this
busiest of creatures who takes me on a tour of the new work. An erratic rodent
–there is no order to this ramble but a scuttling from one piece to another.
To begin with we are on the lower level
of the project space. There’s a bear there, says the ferret with a quick
movement of the head indicating the direction to go. I look up and indeed there
is. Embracing a supporting wooden column is a knitted skeleton of a koala. Bone
by bone and meticulously crafted. This is the work of Michele Beevors, The
Anatomy Lesson; koala, Phascolarctos cinereus.
I had seen her work before at Articulate - a large knitted horse, a skeleton
again of fine precision. It’s the soft texture of the cream knitting
supplanting the hardness of bone that defines these works - the knit
reanimating their forms, affectionately caressing the bodies. And here the little beast curves into
and hugs the beam. The care with which this animal is made, its handcrafted nature
argues eloquently against the blights of environmental destruction and the
indifference of capitalism to this catastrophe.
The
shape is oddly echoed in Liz Hogan’s video Spin.
If the little bear offers comfort Spin disturbs our sensibilities. Rude, sniffs
the ferret. But not much of Liz’s naked form is revealed. Unexpectedly her body
sits on a turning potter’s wheel and is being mechanically wrapped by cling
plastic, her very self increasingly obliterated. The spinning movement of the
wheel references the movement of the viewers moving in the space but no one
else is at such risk or so revealed. The identity on the wheel is being sealed
in, the life of the woman threatened. She is clay and as enclosed as the lump
of clay placed on a stool beside the video. I draw a rapid breath.
LS: A number of works have not been
confined to any one particular location within the gallery, but appear in
various sites. Caitlin Hespe’s work mind
your step
uses barrier and netting structures, made small and humbly from again, hand
pressed ceramics and intriguingly, the everyday - dental floss and found sticks
- to draw attention to the power these trope forms have to direct and dictate
our movement. Eschewing high-viz, plastics and mass production these are
low-viz, handcrafted, disarming and barely effective ‘barriers’.
Also insinuated here and there among
the internal architecture, (even, unsettlingly upside-down among the rafters) is
Elke Wohlfahrt’s Wunderkammer Series.
These cabinets of curiosities, repurposed furniture drawers, invite a look
within, as the boxed specimens appear to contain arrays and collections of
objected sorted according to similarities of colour, form or material. Elke
explained that the wonders within are sourced from her own collections, family
history and supplemented by the donations of other artists in her shared
studio.
You could almost miss (but you
wouldn’t want to) Helen M Sturgess’ untitled,
expressions of tension in states of apparently contained eruption from the
white walls. In an inversion of the status usually accorded to the white cube
in providing a setting for art, these twin white volcano-forms, set into
corners extend the walls into the gallery space, either making the walls into
the work, or vice versa. The firm presence of a buckle suggests the artist
coaxing, even forcing the forms into this dialogue, and hence, this question
from the usually rectilinear and stalwart walls.
While we are still on the
ground floor, over to ER: Close by Carolyn Craig’s large aluminium book Tomes of Authority: Annunciation: When
vowels collide dominates the space.
Etched on the surfaces are faces mouthing words and a poem that describes the
nature of language and the culturally empowered nature of books that carry the
desired and approved values of the society in which they are written to the
exclusion of divergent ways of being.
There is something monumental in this large relief sculpture - a tome
worthy of Moses but the delicacy of the etching subverts authority with
dextrous intent.
The
ferret now quickly runs to the back of the space and sits in front of a small
print of a dog framed and installed on the wall indicating approval of the
subject matter. Oh yes, I think we all love our dogs and here is an
affectionate reference perhaps to a beloved pet semi abstracted and neatly
wrought. Appropriate in this Year of the Dog. But Sophie Coombs’ work, Dog, is more complex than this and
describes the phenomena of the dog as a subject of art as well.
Susan
Andrews’ work is carefully made relief sculpture, a small wooden triangular
shape on the wall, the action of the eye-a wink, a nudge, an acknowledgement of
the joke that is in the ambiguities of meaning in a contemporary world. Blink
and you miss it - wink and you enjoy it. Pink
Wink expresses a pleasure in it and a knowing smile.
And the eye flutters and briefly closes.
LS: The Pink Wink almost seems to be pointing to the works around it, and
in Susan Andrews’ description of the ability of the artwork’s ability to ‘act as a disguise to mask real intentions’
there is a reference to the potential for slippage in this and other works.
This is played out in the language of textiles, via Eva Simmons’ Switchbox & Grounding
and in Joanne Makas’ Crisp and Flow.
Simmons’ work takes the form of a generally gender-specific garment; a dress,
hanging; or hung, seemingly wired to current; or grounded to earth and
two-sided; red / white. Makas’ title appears to describe the qualities of paint
though the work itself, defiantly crisp, hangs high from a beam, out of eye
level, a bundle of coloured open-weave domestic cloth, playing with the idea of
painting.
Similarly referencing the mask
and identity is Sienna White’s work Soft.For
White (and many others) the pre-emoticon smiley face is emblematic of childhood
and she eloquently describes how, after the passing of childhood, ‘The iconic smiley face for me contains
within it the idea of a mask; there is eeriness within a symbol that so
defiantly represents happiness which speaks to the experience of my own
identity being complicated by gender even now.” Covered; or smothered, in pink
, the hue of softness and feminity the words ‘SOFT’ float over the field in two
different fonts.
From a distance, Tom Loveday’s
works
resemble a series of hard-edged abstract paintings, but up close they are
defiantly not, instead a series of carefully inlaid discs, set within squares, with
a superimposed colour card. According to the artist, ‘each “video work” contains a playable video – but only if the work is
destroyed’. One additional work, Performance
art, features a circular hole cut-out, its placement a prominent removal of
the image of the mouth of a well-known performance artist. Videos and books,
usually sources of information, available and accessible to all, are here reduced
to the purely pictorial by the rigorous application of the abstract-geometric
language, inducing a visual agnosia in which we see but cannot recognize.
ER: We
stand now in front of Marta Ferracin’s Metamorphosis. A great scrunch of agar material, this
soft sculpted form is semitransparent and mottled with bacterial life that
patterns the work. It tumbles in a large space at waist height near the kitchen
and the current location of SNO. The ferret has indicated that it might be
edible by chewing a small edge of the work but retreats in distaste. I
understand the motivation. No, I do not want to consume the work but the urge
to touch is irresistible. It is a pliant material and resilient. Marta has
harnessed the forces of life to create the piece and revealed the unities
implicit in life forms. It is an intersection of the practices of both art and
science but its spirit is the creative impulse.
Hot lips, sniggers the ferret in
front of Sarah Fitzgerald’s work. Hot lips? Ah, the colour of the paint that Sarah
used on the thin plywood sculpture that licks the wall and floor to ceiling in
a long strip. The red strip defines the arch of space and the width of the
strip is the same as the supporting beam nearby. Here lies the cleverness of
this piece and its self-reflexive nature. This is Bending Moment and
the angle at which the forces of weight and gravity will bend the supporting
beam. It’s a reference to how the building itself is constructed and its
internal anatomy of forces. But metaphorically the work describes the bending
of mind and soul under stress and hard won resilience.
Michelle
Grasso’s video, Origami Architecture,
gently mesmerises. It takes a
little time and concentration to realise the sense of the images that appear in
sequence. Here are faces and forms, dissolving and recreating, celestial
creatures made electronically from distortions of Sydney buildings and
architecture, folding and refolding like origami pieces. This is a strange new
world in which physical forms are no longer solid objects but creatures of air.
LS: Cranes are creatures of air
and upstairs, in Yoshi Takahashi’s work they are an integral component of Eternity.
Four strands of suspended origami cranes, tightly compressed, emphasizing
their collective and colourful angularity rather than the bird form, rise from;
or descend down, into an urn. Four is for seasons passing and a symbol for longevity,
also death, turning the fragile and ephemeral assemblage into a reflection on the
belief in reincarnation.
ER:
The ferret scampers up the stairs and I follow. On the wall at the top of the
stairs is Michelle Le Dain’s work, Road
Works, best described as an installation or even a wall drawing, given its
linear and graphic nature. The
work is effectively a long line composed of small overlapping collages from
digital prints and card describing a road journey or road works and tracing
this upon the wall. The colour of the road works/signs are bright against the
grey background of road and all becomes geometric pattern. A thin red taped
line links to the taller structure and encircles a power switch. This is road
works made child’s play and a fresh interpretation of the genre.
Jane Gavan’s Lean too, is also on this upper level. The
title describes the work’s action. Irregular arcs of linked clear plastic arch
and lean towards the wall like curved arms. This is a little like Sarah
Fitzgerald’s work in that the curves engage with the form of the building and
indeed create a separate space. The curved transparencies are reminiscent of
medieval flying buttresses. It’s a mindful repetitive action that invites an
imitation of the action. I look for the ferret to participate in this but it
has fled somewhere deep into the recesses of the building.
LS: Perhaps it was frightened
by the noise, for as we started noiselessly, the collaborative work by Julia
Davis and Lisa Jones Who was the driver?
evokes the noise, power and belching exhaust of a car. The marks and frottage have
been made by the repetitive motion of driving on paper, the materials – black
carbon, graphite and charcoal all mired together in a 10.5 metre-long tonal
gradient, a work on paper stretching from clean and clear white on the wall to
an increasingly agitated, marked and ingrained, textural darkness.
Not as dark however as black
velvet, the ground for Kendal Heyes’ Polynesia
#4,
a painting employing the heavy and sumptuous materiality of oil and crushed
marble with velvet – white stone brushed on to black fabric with no intervening
tonality. The result is a clear-sighted push and pull, balanced by a colour and
light-absorbing central void. The artist attributes this work to ‘visual experiences associated with Polynesia,
among them the paintings on velvet of Polynesian women by Edgar Leeteg and Polynesian tapa cloth works, especially
the freehand works from Samoa and Niue.’
The resonance found in the
slippages between things, the way apparently known things reveal unexpected
meanings, these are characteristics of memorable exhibitions and continues to
inform and energize this fertile series of progressive shows, FAIR ISLE (2014),
FERAL (2016) and now FERRET at Articulate Projectspace. What F will be next, we
wonder?
Lisa Sharp
Elizabeth Rankin
Jane Gavan Lean too, 2018,
thin glass, tape, space and light installation.
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