Tara Gilbee

You Must Remember This

2011-11-11T03:29:00.000-08:00

Catalogue Essay by Kent Wilson 2011

Inscribed by time, marked by history and floating in a blackened void of implied vastness, Tara Gilbee sets before us a collection of gathered artefacts. And not unlike icons cast up on the walls for us to decipher in an exchange of give and take, these images are conduits of transfer. They provide us with hints of their utility, with fragments of text, words and scribbles that imply a proscriptive intent – they are guides. But they don’t give us enough. They are like a rosetta stone or a broken code to be translated through a process of gap filling. Who wrote these, why did they write them, and where are these people now? Only the invocation of the vast void within which they now flounder can offer recourse, if any, as we project our own histories into the well.

This is forensic grappling. The documented nature of the original artefacts, photograms of lists and notes collected by the artist over time, give the images a sense of focused inspection. Light has been poured over scraps of paper, reacting with the film below, and leaving an indelible imprint of the materiality of the original. These are shadowed reflections. A once important task, a fleeting significance, now monumentalised here as a granite asteroid.

The rich blacks, deep and heavy, envelope the space and create a still and silent ambience. Not unlike a library or secret archival storehouse, the works hush the space. The granite and marble textures of the captured notes read like tombstones and reinforce a sense of reverence. Floating and drifting like weathered leaves or planetary palimpsests. Fleeting and ethereal paper, fragile and transitory, chiselled into solidity and structure.

Time spent in the space is rewarded with a fluctuating and oscillating sense of slippage. The works walk a tense tightrope between figuration and abstraction, between minimalism and complexity, and between dynamism and stasis. As soon as you grasp one aspect, the other creeps in to take over - only to slip back away again. What at first appears to be a set of black and grey abstract patterns, not unlike Rothko paintings stripped of colour and materiality, and rendered in flattened photographic prints, suddenly emerge as clearly documentary images of actual things. But just as quickly as that transition is made, they slip back into abstraction, and the mind grapples with other interpretations of the forms. The flatness gives way to depth thanks to the unfocused sections of the photograms generated by the folds in the original notes. The scribbles flip between random markings and legible text. All this within an invocation of the universal sublime.

I hope you enjoy this series of works as much as I do, and that you find your own rambling meanings amongst the beautiful imagery.

Kent Wilson 2011

www.kentwilson.net

Thanks: goes to Stockroom and Colour Factory: The staff's professional handling of the artworks and production was impeccable! As well as my friends Kathryn McCool, Tony Cameron and Robyn Walton for their continued support. Also to Punctum Inc and their funding supporters for the opportunity to attend Inhabit International in France; as well Regional Arts Victoria for supporting my professional development through their quick response grants.

http://www.stockroomkyneton.com/

http://www.punctum.com.au

noirlac

2011-09-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

Please review the page titled Noirlac Research Residency for ongoing updates and information about the project.

I am not a regular blogger, so the updates will be sporadic, however I am interested if you would like to add comment or if you also have inspiration to share!

The project is open for comment and input and I would love other artistic responses.

Please see the link to the Abbaye for some background, it is in French, I can fill you in on some details if you have specific questions.

http://www.abbayedenoirlac.fr/

France via Hongkong and lots of waiting

2011-09-21T03:18:00.000-07:00

I have made my way to France for the beginning of the Inhabit Residency. The journey was long with a 5hr stop over in Hongkong so I am just beginning to land in this time zone.

I will post a few pictures taken on route to the France in this post.

I will create a separate page for my project at Abbaye Noirlac see tabs on home page.

The weekend I arrived a fantastic artist group ZUR where presenting their research for a performance in May 2012

http://www.groupe-zur.com/

The work was presented in most of the buildings of the Abbaye and the work was an encounter with the poetics of the space, it enchanted audiences with kinetic sound and light pieces that entranced and enlivened curiosity.

What a wonderful way to venture within the Abbaye and begin the residency ..... now what can I do...

In-Habit International residency September

2011-02-27T17:11:00.000-08:00

Stay tuned for more information regarding my upcoming residency at Abbaye Noirlac in France September
2011

Abbaye Noirlac

Brief explanation of Punctum's In-Habit International program

Punctum, in Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia, manages an international arts research and cultural exchange program – In-Habit International.

Each year through this program Victorian artists working across contemporary art forms that incorporate cultural exchange are awarded a grant to live and work with a host arts organisation in an overseas country.

Four exchanges are offered per year.

What is In-Habit International?

The aim of our arts research and cultural exchange program is for either

• Regionally based Victorian artists to have access to new and stimulating international environments.

• For metropolitan based Victorian artists to have access to new and stimulating regional environments internationally.

We support artists who seek to learn about their host country and its artistic practices and to contribute to the cultural life in the local community of the Host Organisation. Our hope is that these exchanges will result in ongoing relationships between regions, artists and cultural organisations in Victoria and globally.

The cultural exchanges are professional development opportunities celebrating regional arts practice for Victorian arts practitioners and also act to foster reciprocal relationships between artists and arts organisations.

In-Habit International focuses on arts practice that engages with the site, place and arts orientation of a particular Host Organisation and its surrounding community. Cross art form practices and those that embrace the fabric of everyday life and straddle the boundaries of art, science and technology, social activism, design and architecture and live art are also eligible.

http://www.punctum.com.au/inhabit

Cold Light : Exhibition

2010-09-07T19:02:00.000-07:00

Dates: 15 September to 24 October 2010

Opening September 16th: 6-8pm
to be opened by Martin Paten
Director of Castlemaine State Festival.

Venue: Latrobe Visual Arts Centre
121 View St , Bendigo, VIC
Contact: Paul Northam
Tel: +61 3 5441 8724
Email: vacentre@latrobe.edu.au
Web:http://www.latrobe.edu.au/vacentre

'Shadows are a corset for light. When forms emerge unknown they dance on our field of perception, igniting imaginary landscapes and projections of desire.' Tara Gilbee

'Cold Light' is a series of photographic images that utilise the refractive qualities of light, manipulated through lens and mirrors, to distort and transform the materials at hand.

The shadowy imprints explore a psychological landscape. Traversing the beauty of dark looming shapes while seeping into watery fields of the unconscious. Dream like visual fields mesmerize and draw the viewer into a liminal field of possibilities.

opening images:

Link to collaborative work with Lauren Berkowitz

2010-07-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.videoartchive.org.au/lberkowitz/endoscope.html

The Australian Video Art Archive (AVAA) was established in 2006. Its aims are to:

•continue building an on-line video archive and a research collection of new and historical Australian video and performance art works,
•to allow researchers to borrow the material for educational, research and exhibition purposes, and
•to transfer old video or film artworks to a digital format to conserve the work and thus assist in the conservation of a significant genre of Australian art history.
Currently, the collection contains some seminal works by prominent Australian artists. This collection will continue to expand and we are accepting submissions to consider for inclusion.

The archive is the first program of its kind in Australia and has been established with generous assistance from the Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University with the involvement of Prof. Anne Marsh, Matthew Perkins and Elena Galimberti.

New Exhibition at Saxony

2010-07-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

This exhibition displays a set of large A1 images, from my new series Cold Light.

It will be launched Monday 12th July and run for 6 weeks.

At the New Saxony store in World Square Sydney

The art and the fashion intersect with the season’s inspiration.
Spring Summer 2010’s theme is:

“In spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness or
perhaps because of this- the shadow is the seat of creativity.” Carl Jung

Review in Realtime

2010-04-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

This link (click on title of post) takes you to a great article on the Inhabit Project 2010 that i was part of:

It starts as

......"In-habit was an exceptional, inventively curated month-long series of 11 performance, live art and installation works situated in and around the Abbottsford convent. Involving nine key artists, more than a dozen associate artists and numerous participants, these artworks emerged out of a collective residency at the convent established by artistic director Jude Anderson exploring site/place/space and cultural exchange".......

Barry Laing is a Melbourne-based performance maker and writer who teaches at Victoria University and Monash University. He is an Associate Editor of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training Journal, Routledge, UK.

RealTime issue #96 April-May 2010 pg. 33

I'm dreaming of a french meadow

2010-04-22T01:04:00.000-07:00

Inhabit : I’m Dreaming of a French Meadow.
Jude Anderson

Installation: Thur 25th – Sun 28th Feb, 12pm – 5pm
Live performance: Fri 26th Feb 8.30pm Cedric Peyronnet & Jacques Soddell
Venue: Dormitory Two, Rosina Building, Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford

At the Abbotsford Convent there’s a place called the French Meadow where plants run free. From the Convent dormitories where girls once slept in disciplined rows between the strict folds of white cotton sheets, you catch glimpses of the French Meadow. It’s a tempting, gay abandon in this place of precise sleep patterns. In I’m Dreaming of a French Meadow, Jude Anderson in collaboration with photomedia artist Tara Gilbee invites you to a field of reverie; a dormitory now filled with secret gardens where the field recordings of sound artist Jacques Soddell and those of French sound artist Cedric Peyronnet float from each bed and weave through the shifting sleep patterns of an imagined cosmos. A waft of the wild in the girls’ dorm.

I’m Dreaming of a French Meadow combines an installation with a live performance that brings Peyronnet and Soddell together for a combined field recordings concert.

The installation draws inspiration from the French notion of ‘le jardin secret’ - an undisclosed place of desire or escape, along with the garden beds and secrets of the Abbotsford Convent, and the garden beds tended by the immigrant and refugee gardeners of the Atherton Community Gardens.

Associated artists: Tara Gilbee, Cedric Peyronnet, Katie Sfetkidis, Jacques Soddell.

Digital still: Tara Gilbee 2009

In Situ
Jude Anderson & Emilie Collyer
Dates and times: 3rd February – 21st Feb
Launch Wed 3rd Feb 6-8pm
Then Wed – Sun 10am – 5pm
Venue: c3 Gallery, Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford

In-Habit In Situ: Instant Actions
In October 2008 an open invitation went out to over 3,000 artists (via the Melbourne International Arts Festival Card Holder scheme, Regional Arts Victoria and the City of Yarra). The invitation was to attend a tour of the Abbotsford Convent, particularly to buildings that, at the time, were in a state of ‘pre-renovation’ and/or not open to the general public.

After the tours, each artist was invited to return to the Convent during 2009 and undertake an ‘Instant Action’. This could take whatever form the artist chose and would extend for approximately 15 minutes. We asked each artist to document their Instant Action. The documentation is being presented as part of the In-Habit In Situ exhibition at c3 Gallery from 3rd – 21st February 2010.

28 artists elected to perform Instant Actions. Of these, 10 artists carried out their Instant Actions and 8 provided documentation.

Punctum associated artists have also contributed to the Instant Action documentation and exhibition.

In Situ Instant Actions: Artworks and Artists
The laundry - berni m janssen (DVD)
The material and the liminal - Kate Hunter (DVD)
Song cycle for a shadow - Rachael Guy, David Churchill, Andy Jackson (Video & audio recording)
Signs of life/Wish you were here - Amy Tsilemanis (Photographs and Audio recording)
Laundry - Smiljana Glisovic (DVD)
Sacred Heart - Daniel Armstrong (DVD)
koorie~konduit~2010 - Scott Lyon (Print – typography and illustration)
In-Habit: vestiges of research - Artwork by: Jason Maling, Tara Gilbee and
William Head

Digital still: Tara Gilbee 2009

For more in depth information on this extensive research residency into cultural exchange please visit:

http://www.punctum.com.au/inhabit.html

New Works

2010-04-05T18:20:00.000-07:00

This is a preview of works currently being undertaken in the studio and on travels. This folio of work is a continuation of my exploration of photographic means of transforming objects, utilising the mechanical modes of lens refraction and projection, i manipulate images in camera via a number of distortions.

Deluge

2008-11-24T19:20:00.000-08:00

Deluge: Tara Gilbee and Andrew Goodman

Installation with sound track, video, light projections and sculpture.

Deluge was an immersive sound and video project that refered to the anticipation of water and its effect of taking over, temporarily transforming and overwhelming the space or body. It implied a threshold, a transitional state, or a border that can be crossed to another space, place, time or state of being.

The installation drew on a sense of wonder and awe to create elevated feelings of a ephemeral dreamlike state. The work transformed the site ( ICU Castlemaine) into a space that seemed otherworldly – into an hallucinatory portal or threshold, a ‘magical’ secret space. Engaging a dynamic interplay between the underbelly of the building and an imaginary spirit world.
The video work installation revolved around the psychological qualities of eerie but intriguing spaces often utilised in animation and films.

The installation referenced science fiction, anime and Japanese horror films in which the underworld and lurking forces within dark spaces act as an embodiment of the subconscious. These films often exploit an Animist view of the world – where inanimate objects have spirits or a life force within. The building begins to come to life as it oozes water, suggesting a presence in the space.

For a number of years I have worked with Andrew Goodman on a number of proposals and projects.This project Deluge concludes that collaborative work and relationship.

GUISE

2008-04-07T18:26:00.000-07:00

Overview: Who Just Happened
The real skill of the practitioner lies not in skilled concealment but in the skilled revelation of skilled concealment... Hence power flows not from masking, but from an un-masking which masks more than masking does.
~Michael Taussing, from Viscerality, Faith and Skepticism

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring,
will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
~TS Elliot

Two artists from opposite sides of the world, having never met, work with issues of how the self perceives the unknown other in physical and virtual space. Exploring myriad methods of projecting and receiving identity including portraiture, identity theft, performance, and installation, the collaboration will mark their progression toward knowing their fellow collaborator and the nature of the project itself.

Collaboration involves both conscious intentions and unforeseen outcomes of working with someone else. There is a loose promise made, a choice to work with someone with whom one hopes to be artistically compatible. Collaboration depends on a certain assumption of known quantities, ie. self and other. Here however, two strangers are combining into one unknown individual, short-circuiting any sense of control.

Tara Gilbee of Melbourne, Australia, and Robert de Saint Phalle of New York City, United States, met via email and quickly realized the possibility of working together from half a world away. The resulting project spans three phases of proximity and embodiment.

Act 1: Facebook Swap
Gilbee/de Saint Phalle's first exchange will be a set of portraits done using the social utility Facebook. After trading accounts, they will create the other's profile using their research and expectations. For several weeks they will operate under their collaborator's avatar, collecting and interacting with the other's social network. Their portraits will shift over time with feedback from the other's friends and colleagues. In this phase, their close virtual proximity belies their actual physical distance on opposite sides of the earth. De Saint Phalle wonders if there is feminism without a body; Gilbee assumes Facebook is the equivalent of nightclub surveillance (or is it the other way around?).

Act 2: Live-Work Share
De Saint Phalle/Gilbee's second exchange was an installation of a shared studio space in Tara's hometown of Castlemaine, Australia. They were in the same space during different times, taking shifts in the studio. Their efforts focussing on the portrayl of their unknown collaborator and consequently leaving evidence of their own body's activity in space. As the self is in the body, they will saught their collaborator's residual presence to inform their portraits. Is this actually a collaboration or just forensic narcissism?

Act 3: Unmasking? : The Performance

The Housemates' “Ignore The Obvious Task” came to a staggering end with tragic results. ~Big Brother, Australia

The studio a central and small brick space, was actually previously used as a toilet block for the school next door, it had then add feeling of the secretive and furtive meeting of strangers in public places.

A invite was sent and a crowd gathered, through a port hole the un masking could be viewed, on the other side of the space a room was set up as an anti chamer and the audience could wait in this space and over the wall hear the conversations and unveiling take place.

Prior to the Unveiling, both Tara and Robert had on balaclava's, Tara asked Robert to look at a mug sheet and pick which one he thought she was. He picked the wrong one!

Sound Atlas Series: Central Victoria, Robert Curgenven with Tara Gilbee

2007-11-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

RF003
Sound Atlas Series:
Central Victoria
Robert Curgenven with Tara Gilbee

Detailed, dream-like photographs and field recordings realised in conjunction with the Test Match project at Allans Walk Artist Run Initiative in Bendigo (Central Victoria), 14-20 November 2007. A beautifully produced collection of photographs and field recording compositions presenting an audiovisual survey of the area in and surround Castlemaine to the growing regional centre of Bendigo, combining an intimate local knowledge with an extensive understanding of the Australian landscape. Re-approaching the concept of the Sound Atlas developed in RF001, Gilbee and Curgenven uncover the regions’ socioeconomic and geo-historical dimensions – from the site of the world biggest alluvial goldrush in the 1850s to a landscape radically transformed: to ghost towns; by the ravages of prospecting, industrial developments; and the new tide of “settlers” fleeing the big cities.

http://www.recordedfields.net/label/releases_rf003.asp

Blindside Exhibition 2007

2007-10-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

Video work exhibited by Tara Gilbee and Andrew Goodman related to the collaborative project, Deluge. The small video and sound pieces were part of a series of works which explored concepts about the transformative nature of and metaphors associated with water. In their recent work both artists have explored the experience of the human body.

Drawing upon the writings of Deleuze and Bataille that advocate the immersion of the body in physical sensation, these projects explored the concept of ‘affect’, the direct physical connection between the viewer’s body and the ‘event’ that works to blur boundaries between the two. The work references science fiction, anime and Japanese horror films which frequently exploit an Animist view of the world. In this small work the viewer’s engagement with the work was intimate and voyeuristic.

for further information
http://www.blindside.org.au/2008/the-big-smoke.shtml

mise en abyme 2007

2007-08-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

TARA GILBEE

Mise en Abyme

Gilbee’s oeuvre entails a complex exploration of human existence that often borders on the ineffable. The ethereal and somewhat ephemeral nature of her materials complements this sensibility while enhancing an intrinsic poeticism in her work. While this exhibition continues her investigation of ‘interior’ worlds - on both physical and psychological levels – the work shifts towards an exploration of the relationship(s) that exist between consciousness and the creative impulse through emotions such as fear, anguish and desire.

Using photography (light) as her principal medium, Gilbee has constructed mysterious and elusive collages in both still and video formats. Comprised of abstract and fragmented human (mostly male) forms - including eyes - Gilbee transforms popular imagery found in magazines into a preferred aesthetic derived from her unconscious and/or the shifting, shadowy forms of dreams and imagination. Reminiscent of surrealist photography and cinema, these evocative forms also act as symbols of erotic desire which the surrealists saw as providing the stimulus for revelation and creativity.

What is interesting, however, is Gilbee’s further use of light to ‘ephemeralise’ the above formats and intensify the dreamlike quality of her chosen imagery. For example, a light placed underneath the stills - mounted on semi-opaque Perspex - casts residual phantom-like forms onto the walls. On the other hand, the video is projected into a three-dimensional, translucent black Perspex structure that reflects, diffracts and diffuses the imagery through layered, angular surfaces so it forms a continuously changing shape that mutates and transforms in a rhythmic pattern determined by a breathy, whispering voice that repeatedly utters the words, “his eyes, his eyes, his eyes…”

As the allegory of Plato’s cave would have us believe, these shadow- or dream-like forms demonstrate that the foundation of reality can never be reached and we can only ever observe and/or know things in their ideal forms. Another protagonist of this idea was Lacan, who often stated that “the real is impossible”. But for both, this is because we are caught up in a symbolic order of language ie. reality cannot be expressed in language because the very entrance into language marks our irrevocable separation from the real…

By asserting that the unconscious is also structured like a language[1], Lacan suggests that our lack of any relation to reality is what gives rise to our fantasies and leaves us in a constant state of desire. If we return to Gilbee’s work and her exploration of consciousness, her use of the idealised man is as a symbol of fantasy and desire. But in recognising this and completely transforming the ideal into an abstracted, dream-like form it also becomes a symbol of her own creativity.

As the title Mise en Abyme suggests, the imagery in the primary photographic and video formats represent an emblematic structure that belongs to a larger narrative, which is represented in the projections. The ensuing phantom-like forms and infinitely transforming images within the black Perspex structure are like a dream-within-a-dream and symbolise our lack of reality through the intertextual nature of language. But it also symbolises the artists’ studio - an unending journey into the unconscious, releasing fantasy, desire and creativity.

[1] Lacan, Jacques, The Four Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis (The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book 11), 1998, p. 203.

Chinese Whispers

2007-04-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

Castlemaine State Festival : 2007

Installation in New China Restaurant,Castlmaine. Collaboration between Tara Gilbee and Andrew Goodman.

This art work was composed of digital stills on transperant film, light boxes, paper leaves and surround sound. The work emulated an asian pagoda and worked with the idea of rumour mills and secretative conversations, furtive sound bites in small towns.

Utilising inspiration from the decor and site the work created a small installation which was a new custom within the restaurant for two weeks. The audience to this work where a broad range of people, from the elderly who had a regular table at the front of the restaurant, to children who ran around the work exclaiming "its alive in there".

Breathing down your neck

2004-12-12T10:54:00.000-08:00

Installation for Mma : Clubs, Melbourne 2004

Video documentation of a live art action, whereby the audience where invited to breath on a perspex plate with a person on the other side. The work had mirror plates on the wall behind and the audience where reflected within the action.

The work was the final in the Velvet light series which explored the dynamic of the breath and experiencing the breath in a reflective manner.

The work was concieved months prior to the SARS outbreak but was actioned around this time, when the notion of a stranger breathing on you could cause fatal harm, this added another element to the reading at the time.

velvet light series III

2004-09-09T02:50:00.000-07:00

Digital images on perspex and mirror 2004: Images 80 x80cm mirror dimensions variable.

This is the largest and most complex in the velvet light series. It has been difficult to represent in documentation, as the manner in which it interacts with the surrounding space and its own image, making it illusive. A door was removed from the back of the window space (10mt wide +3mt high) and covered to allow only the 80 cm hole in which a mirror box inverted into the next space behind the wall. Then mirror ran vertically along the wall to meet the two large images that were sitting at right angles from the wall.

As people walked past the installation they became part of it, as did the passing transport and weather patterns of the day. The image shimmered and interacted within the box where the female image was placed and outside where the two males where. The triptych then darkened and flattened at night, the internal box receded and from a distance looked like a flat dark surface. The external images became faded under the brighter lights but projected large shadows of themselves on to the walls, spreading across the space.

velvet light series II

2004-08-01T02:40:00.000-07:00

Digital images (clear) on perspex with mirror bases 2004: dimensions variable each cube 40cm.

There is a powerful tool in the third person, which is created by observing someone observing him or herself. A disquieting sense of voyeurism about a persons private introspection.

In these installations sharp reflections make it appear the sharp reflections make it appear as if the mirrored subjects are breathing themselves into life. It is a restrained distance that is imparted, a strong sense of viewing from behind a wall at an intimate moment. As the audience get closer they too become part of the subject and then sense their own part within the world of others and the space between.

velvet light series I

2004-04-01T02:32:00.000-08:00

Digital prints on clear perspex or mirror 2004: 40cm x 40cm.

In this work I aimed to dissolve audience inhibition by gently and subtly calling them towards reflections and refraction of light so they became enmenshed within the network of reflected and projected imagery. The images on the clear perspex projected onto the walls like slides, at first it appears hard to discern where the image is coming from as the horizontal plane of the clear perspex image is hidden from the eye and only the shadow play on the wall is evident. Then when investigating the clear boxes, the mirror at the base absorbs the image and projects it downward and within the supporting base, to appear like a hole.

As the audience explores the work they also find themselves within it. The photographs work as a complimentary engagement with the other materials. The mirror makes illusion and reality interchangeable, creating uncanny spaces in which to observe the image. The photographs are clearer in the mirror than they are as a surface to observe. The projected content is easier to explore, while trying to observe detail on the actual image becomes very difficult, it shimmers and changes, interacts with the surrounds and the observer.

velvet light series

2004-01-01T02:27:00.000-08:00

Digital prints 52 x 66 cm and digital prints on clear perspex or mirror 40cm x 40cm 2002 –2004:

‘velvet light’ is a series of images and exhibitions which explored the breath and interstitial space , using a combination of photography and sculpture. The series was based around sculptural installations that utilised photography, mirror and translucent materials. It is an ongoing body of work that builds on itself through the reapplication of concepts and materials in new contexts.

The photographic material is derived from situations that portray intimate/interior moments where there is a sense of transitional boundaries. The images refer to the mysterious spaces between the body and its external environment and the relationship a person may have with their reflection. The image shows the person as fragments of reference, their profile says one thing about them, their reflection another. The myriad of surfaces and angles with which we can be observed is at play within the portraits. On first observation the one person appears as two and the moment reads in a more intimate/ sexual way. It is also confounding how there is a reverberating dialogue between the same person, we attempt to read a conversation from one image to the other but it is not available, as it is a singular conversant thought only available to the sitter.

a continental love affair

2002-12-01T02:14:00.000-08:00

Digital prints from video stills and 35mm neg. 2001-02: 25 X 10cm

This series was a deliberate departure from the medical and stark monochrome work I had developed. It was another form of exploration of the body and the boundaries of private and public. However this work was based on exploring the Male only domain of the Barber Shop. Spaces that are significant culturally in representing migrant influence within Australia, often prolific within inner urban enclaves. However this domain is shifting through changes in real estate prices and shifting clientele. I photographed and videoed my partner being shaved at 5 or 6 different Barber Shops. Initially I was interested in the sensual imagery of his face and neck but in the process of creating the work I realised the homo-erotic nature of the act and the sinister sense of trust/surrender implicit in the cut throat.

Drawing on the filmic traditions inherent around this subject, I utilised the video stills to impart colours of cheap pornography and western flicks. The images where displayed in sets, broken into rhythms which created a sense of storyline and intense moments in time.

contained within and without

2001-12-01T01:55:00.000-08:00

Digital prints and magnifying plastic 2001: 17x 18cm

This work was a series created for the second exhibition. This project was a curatorial collaboration, a collection of artists where selected and given a brief to explore the space between one subway display case and its adjoining space.

I worked with the actual architecture of the display case, as it had the design appearance of train windows. I videoed outside and within trains capturing people for stills. A voyeuristic look at people in private moments within public space. A sense of the moment condensed and amplified. Bottled time whereby the passing is suspended.

Exploring the transitional boundaries of public space and the particular emotions and expressions of each commuter seemingly suspended within the illuminated lense scupltures. Referencing photography’s own process of creating perception of recorded time.

transfigurative illumination

2000-12-01T01:50:00.000-08:00

Xrays 1998 –2000: 35 x 42cm.

The process of making these art works was achieved with the assistance of a radiologist both at the Hospital and later at a University. Plaster casts were taken from people, then reconstructed and taken into a radiology school to be X-rayed. Plaster has a similar density to bone, and can therefore be picked up in Xray. In recreating the image of the body with a sense of its own life force and volition, I was challenging the medical model of compart-mentalising and pathologising the body.
 I have intersected boundaries, to reverse the image of the physical body in clinical diagnostics. The chemical processes of the X-ray resurfaces the identity of the individual being scientifically investigated. The formation of a two dimensional image from a three dimensional form, which can be seen from all surfaces, is a rare event. It is magical to be able to see through the figure in this sense, and yet still determine its outer form. Visually the image demands concentration and interaction to read its shifting sense of form from a surface to an object. I felt these works embraced ideas I had of the body as a corset for light.

The title's use of the word 'transfigurative' refers to the notion of illumination after death, creating a reference to the idea of transformation and revelation through light.  

the light inside is eternal

1999-12-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

B&W Polaroids 1998-99: 10 X 15cm

This series of images is quite extensive. During a self initiated artist residency at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, I worked on art which responded to both the site and activity of the site. I had close association with the place as I had trained to be a nurse at the hospital in 1988 for three years. I wanted to create work that impressed the internal nature of transition through the space. I exposed aspects of the architecture to create a sense of analogy to the body and the people within as shadowy figures moving through its caverns.

The medium circumvented clarity and this then distinguished an emotive polarity, with all the light source sketching an outside world from which each person had transited from. Its only outside in which time passes, in the Hospital the mechanisms of its activities never cease and the light is eternally fluorescent. In visiting or working the nature of the hospital is distinct and separate to that which continues on further from its borders.

spirit hole

1996-12-01T13:00:00.000-08:00

B&W photograms 1996: 25 X 10cm.

This work explored the ideas within Mayan ceramic funeral sculpture, whereby holes where left within the figurines to allow the spirit to escape. I took small sculptures and exposed them on top of photography paper. This imagery captures a sense of life force within a figure and was a precursor to my explorations with Xrays.