More tame than ground-breaking, New Australian Printmaking has a present – although introverted – mindset. Grand notions aside, it subtly composes an evergreen appreciation of an ancient medium – future-proofing printmaking through the process, collaboration, and experimentation of producing something new.
Groundwork exists with both humble and dynamic energy, a duality owing to Mark Galea’s spatial and colour awareness transfixing his work with a presence open to the viewer’s approach.
Rebecca Belmore’s corpulent force carries Turbulent Water, Australia’s first solo of the celebrated Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe) artist. Showing at Buxton Contemporary until May, the exhibition broadly positions Belmore’s works: video projections with performance and sculptural elements which nurture Indigenous peoples’ cultural bonds and abrasions.
Helena Sinclair’s work exists at the edge of a boundary – or playfully sits either side. Seeing it, take note of your first feeling or instinct. Is the platter bristling with hairsoothing with its delicate beauty, or discomforting with a grossness that’s not quite gross? Does your reaction sit between the two, not at neutrality but an in-betweenness that depositions your body? Does its silly name undo you further?
How to Build a Universe, to me, almost looks archaeological: the sprawled objects spotlit in the dark to be personally discovered and interpreted like bones and fragments, rather than sold to audiences as a proud whole. The exhibition posits: it’s futile to reach for an objective collection of an intricate world and, instead, personal responses, self-aware of their subjective nature even if they draw from scientific method, can build our knowledge of the world. Creativity destabilises information.
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