The FERAL project’s
ethos has been likened to a communal studio
and its relentless progress as a series of overlapping, altered and interactive
spatial occupations of the communal studio and project space was certainly
evident at the opening of Feral 4 last Friday night.[i]
There was a distinct performative aspect, as a number of artists (and one
particular work) acted within and upon the confined space, performing in close
proximity to each other and to viewers. Apart from the vitality that these
performances brought to the experience, an unexpected aspect of returning to a
progressive exhibition such as this one was the experience as the returning
viewer. The return to last week’s show as it transitioned into this week’s show
is activated by the familiar and the unknown. As a returning viewer you are
able to interact activated not only through memory and a certain nostalgia, but
also with curiosity and this awareness mediates your perception of the show.
You have arrived with baggage.
Some works linger as relics and mementoes of FERAL 3 and consolidate the notion of
transgressive domesticity that characterised the earlier FERAL. Other works have been removed, their sites replaced by new
works that may or may not be haunted by what has gone before, depending on the
baggage of the viewer. As with any group show, sometimes the proximity between
the works allows other dialogues to emerge, expected or not.
Entering within the narrow rectangular space of Articulate
Project Space, one is confronted once again with the now familiar forms of
Veronica Habib’s suspended underwear work. As promised, the hair is even
thicker and curlier than before, assuming a defiant territorial occupation of
each little patch of lingerie, and therefore of its section of the show. It is
as if the work has matured and staked its own little land claim over the past
week. A little beyond, writhing slowly on the floor is the shiny green ducting recognisable
as of Sue Callanan’s In the space of a breath, perhaps a little
more battered. Her neighbours this week are not static however as there is a
cluster of performance activity centred on this part of the ground floor as
incoming artists move in on the space. Also under the staircase, Jeff Wood
tinkers and adjusts his work Painting
Machine, an assemblage of found objects, including skateboard parts and a
bicycle wheel as ode to Duchamp. These are all coaxed into function and pressed
into service as surrogate-artist objects, mechanically creating works of paint
on canvas. Against the wall near Jeff, Melissa Maree quietly and methodically sorts
and sticks brown lionoleum cut-outs onto the floor and wall, based on “basic forms of artworks, objects and feelings” she has encountered during FERAL.[ii]
At some point, Aude Fondard’s performance work, Dolly’s mad enters the fray as a self possessed young woman lies
down in the possession of / possessed by a plastic bride doll. All this activity
occurs in a close and narrow space, around and between groups of spectators.
Possibly a poster piece this week for the curatorial concept
of feral / fair isle as transgressive / domesticated is Kate Mackay’s soft
edged and hand crafted piece of geometric abstraction. Crochet Cubes is a three-dimensional work and it hangs across the
space, forming a room divider or screen. In contrast to the usually cool
delineations of gridded colour associated with geometric abstraction in which
gesture is minimised however, every stitch references the gesture of making,
and yarn edges and changes protrude unevenly, clearly delineating the crafting process.
The work’s cubed seriality is appropriately within sight of Richard Dunn’s
series of small, perfectly square paintings, in which precise bands of precisely
mixed colour are placed, hard edged yet emergent in subtle relief against other
bands. A part of the material dialogue between Richard and Kate’s proximate
works is surely colour as pigment as against colour as dyed yarn. Upstairs,
Yoshi Takahashi’s installation of timber cubes presents another variant of
geometric abstraction as units of colour are placed in gridded symmetry in a
meticulous visual analysis of colour as part of a larger whole, creating a
field-like effect.
Appearing as a motion stopped by a brick, Sarah Fitzgerald’s
sculptural piece Arch curves
gracefully away from the back wall of the space’s ground floor, providing a
contrast, as Sarah describes, with “the
post and beam structure of the gallery space”.[iii]
Continuing this mode of invasive interactions into the gallery space, but
taking it to invasion is Dominic Byrne’s aggressive little work, Trigger Warning 2015. Perched in apparent
domestic serenity on the far back wall this air dispenser squirts pepper spray
into the room once every 15 minutes, in an eye-watering, sneeze-inducing
inversion of the domestic room fragrance product.
A synchronous melding of works from FERAL 3 and 4 occurs
upstairs, where the upper portion of Helen L Sturgess’ work, consisting of
bunched pale pink tulle on exposed rafters is adjacent to a softly flickering
watercolour animation of couples dancing, their bodies compressed within the
space of the projected band across the uneven white brickwork: Thin Ice by Elizabeth Rankin. This narrative
of containment is continued with Kathryn Ryan’s boxes, arrayed in a
museological display of small and
delicate items that appear to have been collected from the site. Particularly
poignant and tenderly observed is the box of “small white spaces” visible below.
The final iteration of this 6-week long communal project, FERAL 5 opens on Friday 6 February 2015.
Some visitors will then have 5 pieces of baggage to carry around with them.
[i] Articulate blog post, 02.02.2015 http://articulate497.blogspot.com.au (accessed 05.02.2015)
[ii] Melissa Maree,
Facebook post, 01.02.2015 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1570312622&fref=ts (accessed
05.02.2015)
[iii] Sarah Fitzgerald,
Artist Statement, Feral 4 Roomsheet https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B78OP44gB4wbS1I0bVo4NS1rZGs/view accessed
05.02.2015)
