Few will remember the
glorious music hall nonsense of English comedians who, for whatever the reason,
put ferrets down their trousers as part of their act. With high cut trousers
and buckled belts these martyrs suffered for their art. Bulges appeared and
disappeared in the trouser fabric. The discomfort produced erratic movements
and the true purpose of the ferret was revealed not just to be busy but to
create mischief as the comedian itched, stamped, shimmied and sometimes in
desperation dropped their duds altogether. The poor undressed soul became a crazed
loon capable of anything.
Ferrets were creatures
of discomfort and as such are truly the creatures of art.
And so it is that Ferret in its second manifestation of
2018 also produces a stirring of the senses that is worthy of the rodent’s
burrowing into the body. The ferret’s constant movement, its changing form
produces a dance of perception in the viewer though all remained clothed on
this occasion.
As a guide for any
reader who may stumble across this blog on a very googley day I describe the
works from the ground floor to the upper floor walking somewhat tentatively
amongst artworks from the back of the project space to the front entrance.
Thus I begin…..
Sue Callanan’s work, Filling the Cavity of Time (2018),
creates both a new “wall” and a landscape of the mundane in a space at the back
of the ground floor.[1] The beauty
of this softly architectural piece is the reversal of our anticipation of a
wall-here all is transparent, irregular and muted. Plastic film fills the large
nook and over the course of the day the natural light transforms the work and
shadows create little vignettes that come and go within the piece. This work
cannot support any weight as a more conventional wall might do and yet it
performs as wall. A nice ambiguity.
Well placed beside
this “wall” is Anke Stäcker’s Nach Uns (2017-2018). It’s the colour of this photographic
print that engages the viewer. It is rich in shades of red from pink to
carmine. Whilst printed on plastic the photograph is not completely opaque so
that both natural and artificial light transform the work making the colour
ever more resonant. In conversation with Anke I learn that this abstract work
is a photograph of plastic bags and red cellophane paper and this combination
explains the subtle variations in tone.[2]
Elizabeth Rankin’s Scream, (2017) is an oil on industrial
plastic drawing of a distorted male face. A largish rectangle loosely hung on
two pins, the work directly portrays human emotion. The image is smeared but
the face is menacing in its distress. The scream is silent but sound is
conveyed. The portrait seems barely there and another second image shimmers in
the blurring of the shadow against the wall. Here is the psyche, the uncanny
return of memory in post-traumatic stress.[3]
On the floor beside “Scream” is Deborah Prior’s Long Sleep, (2018). The rectangular form
of this piece echoes the shape of Scream but
here all is apparently more peaceful and contained by the narrow strips of the
found pastel woollen blanket, neatly tailored. Balls of the fabric unravel beyond
but connected to the form. A cat might play with these as toys in the warm
domestic setting that the blanket suggests. The “knitted” piece is imperfect.
The edges seem to wobble and the Scream
hovers above. Long Sleep deals with the imperfect geometry of
being human.[4]
I almost miss the
brain halves that form a rather sneaky floor work. Yes brains, I repeat brains
or at least brain creatures. Fiona Kemp’s Untitled
(2018) are plastic sculptural parts with horse hair tails. They are very
disturbing as the combination of materials might well be but they amuse as
well. Will they scuttle away and hide in a corner of the gallery? I rather hope
they will play hide and seek.[5]
I must watch my step.
Linden Braye’s Retro-fit (2018) is an upturned chair cut to fit into the steps
that mark a slight change of level on this floor.[6]
Little tiny chairs have placed onto the upturned legs. Our spatial expectations
are likewise tipped upside down. The viewer is unsure of the true scale, the
real perspective and put simply, which way is up. But all of this is irrelevant
to Linden Bray who has enjoyed this exercise immensely and is inviting us to
take pleasure in the work. This seems to be a chair straight from Gulliver’s Travels brought into the
gallery by Joseph Kosuth.[7]
Michelle Elliot’s one and another (2018) features a
handkerchief pinned to a wall at eye level echoed by its watercolour
representation placed carefully beside it.[8]
The watercolour seems to tattoo the wall with a memory of the original. There
is a sweetness in the piece because the handkerchiefs are so simple and
ordinary, almost archaic domestic objects. It’s a work for meditation and a
consciousness that the handkerchief is a sturdy thing capable of enduring many
washes. It’s a digression as an abstract portrait of the cloth as metonym for
the human.
This ground level of
the project space truly centres upon Emma Wise’s work The Housing Project Sydney, 2015-.[9]
Essentially this is a research project into the housing/living experiences
in the Sydney area. This research is facilitated by Emma interviewing visitors
and mapping their habitation on a large coloured map of Sydney projected on a
wall. This is also a performative piece and quite an interactive artwork of
interviewer and subject and for that matter the onlookers and the murmured
sounds of conversations and stories told. I understand that this research may
become an installation of recorded voices but I am already a fan of this small
and involving spectacle.
A wonderful cluster of
Lisa Sharp’s inarticulations (paintless
paintings) (2018) climb the wall and wooden support beams of the space. I know
these canvas and gesso sighs from Factory 49 where they were shown in a single
row but now they seem to have multiplied. These are non -painting paintings made
from solid materials but also from the breath of the artist in shaping the
moulds, the act of the body itself to create work. In Articulate these white forms seem somewhat larger as they embrace
and bravely explore the space in companion groups that avoid the eye level and
so tempt the viewer on a small visual adventure. Lisa Sharp’s work suggests
that painting has not died but is absent because it has gone on a walk or even
an archaeological dig as a discourse into the nature and history of painting.[10]
Far less meandering is
Margaret Roberts’ Everyone can be a site
specific artist (43 Junior St) (2018). This a quite disciplined echo of a
fence belonging to the site, 43 Junior St Leichhardt.[11]
Not representative as such but nevertheless precise in its making. It’s all
about line, lines of white string attached to tacks. One can visit the site or
even embark with Margaret on an organised tour. Something niggles in my brain—this
juxtaposition of fine lines is familiar and I recall the contemplative work of
Agnes Martin. And no this is clearly not the desert but the Parramatta Road but
as with Martin here is the geometric and the celebration of line and space—the
realisation of a sacred geometry. And yes, dear reader, I did make the
excursion to 43 Junior St.
Adjacent to Lisa
Sharp’s white installation are Ope’s blue drops, rain or tears–Falling down, getting up (2017).[12] This is an installation of symbols, a
personal reflection in public space. The smallish drops are ceramic creations
suspended by fishing wire but also resting on the floor-a veil of tears, a
shower of quite intense colour. The installation sits well beside Lisa Sharp’s
work as if the forms were the words uttered by her white open mouths and there
is a conversation just beyond our hearing range. It’s a hopeful work about pain
and renewal-life after the rain.
Anya Pesce’s work Large Diagonal Fold Revisited (2017) is
an interesting expansion of her marvellous lipstick red resin sculptural forms.
In this show the familiar shape appears printed on cloth becoming a
representation of the abstract form, a portrait of the sculpture yet seemingly
carelessly addressed. Knowing Anya’s work I am a little surprised but quite
delighted by this turn of events and the notion of a portrait of a sculpture is
in itself intriguing. Placed near the entrance of the project space the fabric
moves in the slight breeze and the red image ripples.[13]
On the opposite wall
Raymond Mathew’s installation, The
Bending of Light (2018) softly recalls Mikala Dwyer but Raymond’s forms are
smaller and rather more irregular than Dwyer’s. They tumble down the wall to
the floor.[14]
In the transparency of the clear plastic the eye forms body parts but these
forms were made by moulding pieces over rocks with a heat gun and I think the
bodily shapes I see come from my own imagination. Yet surely this is the point
that the work is open to such idiosyncratic interpretations.
But reader, I move too
quickly forward and must backtrack a moment for under the stairs is Sarah
Newell’s long installation, unstable
architecture (2018).[15]
This is a complex multi piece sculpture of many small plywood shelves
interspersed with little pots of succulents. It’s a low long artwork abutting
the brick wall. It’s almost an odd piece of student furniture as I remember
making from wood and bricks. But here all is Lilliputian.[16]
A twist on the domestic.
The work of Tamsin
Salehian, Shadow (2018) also
references the brick wall of this space.[17]
This is a small irregular sculpture of stacked bricks lit by red and green
spotlights. It’s tucked near the stairs and almost escapes notice but it has a
quiet resonance playing with shape and shadow. Bricks are materials of
architecture and the work seems to extend the building’s wall itself in a neat
act of self-reflective dexterity. The effect of the work depends upon its use
of both colour and the play of intersecting shadows.
The levels of the
exhibition space are linked by the long strips of cloth hanging in a column
drop from one level to another. The colour of the cloth is a pale calico and
relates well to the tones of Lisa Sharp’s work in front of which it falls and a
whispering conversation of secrets is created. It is a work of hope—the
viewer’s eyes are uplifted and spirits are raised. Even the ties holding the
work on the upper level give pleasure. This soaring work is the installation of
Laine Hogarty and is aptly named antidote
for worry (2018) and indeed it is.[18]
Also linking the two
levels of this space is Angus Callander’s Canopy
(2018).[19]
The work acts almost as both a floor for one level and a false ceiling for the
other and artlessly negotiates a liminal border. Canopy weaves ribbon–like
across the rafters in bright strips of cotton fabric. Its form seems to further
define these rafters and to simultaneously suggest that these rafters might
naturally extend or perhaps meant to uphold such colour. This new blue sky is
created by colourful and celebratory drapery.
Upstairs
Ambrose Reisch’s small
black sculpture sits a little mysteriously on a plinth. Called Toast (2018), it is a found toaster
holding not bread but two small identical books.[20]
The work is painted almost entirely black. This is a work of wit and perhaps
wisdom. It has a very contained formal structure—its darkness uncompromising.
The domestic reference is obvious but what is being seared are books, indeed
they are burnt. So that Toast questions
about books and their worth or even of knowledge and what is permitted in an
age of infringement and censorship. But we are not completely let off here with
this overly neat analysis as the books have small abstracted landscapes painted
on their surface, landscape’s of Reisch’s beloved Hawkesbury.
Kat Sawyer’s Pairs (2012) sits quietly on the wall.[21]
This work is a diptych of images, digital prints that document a process of
fitting through or squeezing into holes in materials. They are framed works
side by side. The images themselves show the almost impossible body parts such
as arms and elbows trying to fit into spaces which seem too small. The colours
are muted, there is no struggle. The body parts become an intriguing human
pattern across the two works that provide a very contemplative experience.
Lily Cummins’ work is
an installation of collaged drawing fragments, Last night as I searched for
you among the sheets, (2015-2016)[22].
These pieces constitute one work and the poetic and enigmatic title intrigues.
Looking closely at the work I think of abstracted sheets, the bed and an
imagined body or bodies. It’s oddly erotic—this search for the bed partner who
seems just beyond reach. The earth colours play against cooler tones and white
folds and the surface of each piece is quite richly worked.
I should have no
favourites but I am drawn irresistibly to Kate Scott’s projection at the end of
this upstairs space titled A not quite
unsightly enough ludic object (work in progress 2018).[23]
I embark I confess, dear reader, on a mental search for the meaning of ludic
and settle on playful, silly or absurd. I move closer to the work. Curiouser
and curiouser. It’s a low small projection through a cardboard structure—a mini
theatre. The projected images are abstract. I have no answers and I want none.
I realise I have been bitten by the ferret and my perceptions sharpened. It’s
dadaesque this work. Nonsense and the possible all at once, not decorative and
it will never go well with your drapes no matter what their colour nor sit
invitingly in a living room.
ELIZABETH RANKIN
[1] Sue Callanan Filling
the Cavity of Time
plastic film, natural and artificial light 800 x 175 x 460 (2018),
[2] Anke Stäcker Nach
Uns digital back-lit
print on plastic, 107 x 65cm (2017-2018). www.ankestäcker.com
[3] Elizabeth
Rankin Scream oil on plastic 1mx 1.5m
(2017)
[4] Deborah
Prior Long Sleep, # 1, found woollen
blanket, beads, dimensions variable (2018) www.instagram.com/ deborah prior/
[5] Fiona Kemp Untitled
plastic brain parts, horse hair (2018) http:
//fionakemp.com
[6] Linden
Braye Retro-fit wood, paint, cement
floor, variable dimensions (2018)
[7] Johnathon
Swift Gulliver’s Travels 1726
[8] Michelle Elliot one and another watercolour, wall, mapping
pins, variable dimensions (2018)
[9] Emma Wise The Housing Project Sydney, 2015-.[9] Conversation, desk, chairs, projection,
canvas, drawing materials emmawise.com.au
[10] Lisa
Sharp inarticulations (paintless
paintings) glue, beeswax, varnish, copper tacks (2018)
[11] Margaret Roberts’ Everyone
can be a site specific artist (43 Junior St Leichhardt) tacks, string,
wall, location (2018). margaretroberts.org
[12] Ope Falling down, getting up ceramics,
glaze, spray paint, fishing wire (2017)
[13] Anya
Pesce Large Diagonal Fold Revisited digital
print on fabric 1m x1m (2017)
[14] Raymond Mathew The
Bending of Light clear polycarbonate sheet, fishing line (2018).www.instagram.com/ray
mathew 9//
[15] Sarah Newell unstable
architecture plywood ,dirt, recycled ceramics, plants, recycled plastic
bottles, dimensions variable plastic bottles(2018).
[16] Johnathon Swift Gulliver’s
Travels 1726.
[17] Tamsin Salehian, Shadow
bricks, lights, cards (2018) @tamsin2076
[18] Laine
Hogarty antidote for worry fabric and threat (2018) www.lainehogarty.com@laineway
[19] Angus Callander Canopy
cotton fabric, dimensions variable
(2018).
[20] Ambrose
Reisch Toast mixed media-found toaster, books, paint (2018) https://ambrosereisch.com/
[21] Kat Sawyer’s Pairs
digital prints, 50 cm x 75cm (2012)
[22] Lily
Cummins Last night as I searched for you
among the sheets, gesso, acrylic, charcoal, oil stick, ink and collage on
found paper and cardboard
dimensions variable (2015-2016) http://www.lilycummins.com
[23] Kate Scott A not
quite unsightly enough ludic object (work in progress) projector, single
channel video (5 mins) card, paper, tape, ceramic and polymer clay objects
(2018).
DOWNLOAD AS PDF