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The Mercurial Shadow

This work is a new series of photographs which builds on earlier experiments undertaken at the start of the year with Heidi Romano as part of Punctum Inc's  white space launch - a project called Double Crossing.

http://www.punctum.com.au/residencies/white-space/double-crossing

The work utilises a manipulation of light and layering techniques created in my studio, as a starting point, to find the fleeting forms and shifting fields of light which create a final poetic form. Often this feels more like a process of drawing than photography. 

The work is a composite of unstable, mutating and visceral surfaces which allude to the internal body and a sense of the inner workings of physiology.

It has a type of schematic information which draws reference to bodily phenomena, as well as creating notions of alchemical forms and transmuting fields of energy shimmering before the eye.

The works are printed as C Type photographs on Metallic Paper in order to enhance the shimmering quality of the light within.  The paper creates an opalescent surface and black mirror which has a material quality reminiscent of past works both sculptural and photographic. 

The mercurial shadow I - Type C print on Kodak Metallic paper 594mm x 841mm

The mercurial shadow II - Type C print on Kodak Metallic paper 594mm x 841mm

The mercurial shadow III - Type C print on Kodak Metallic paper 594mm x 841mm

The mercurial shadow III - Type C print on Kodak Metallic paper 594mm x 841mm

Thanks to Jude Anderson and Heidi Romano for the creative experiments and Kathryn McCool and Robyn Till for the creative support.

new website on the way - stay tuned

http://www.taragilbee.com

will become a final platform to showcase all the projects and works in a more easily navigated way. Not long now!! but taking a little longer than expected.... hopefully soon!!

The Fever Ships

Current research project:  

‘The Fever Ships’ is a creative research project that explores multiple sites with a relationship to Quarantine and migration in Australia. The new artworks developed will be a contemporary approach to this historic material and will associate thematically with borders, protective barriers, palimpsests of the past and marks within the landscape, internment and forcible detention. These themes point to a much broader context of Australia’s medical, migration and maritime legacy, and the global movement of people. The project will link into current political concerns, as well the layers of past experience that inform these. The research project will link into the archaeological investigation of more than 1000 inscriptions dating from the 1830s to 1970s, with the help of the Sydney University Research Associates currently conducting a project at the Manly, NSW Quarantine Station.( see the following article for more information on the site and works of this group 

http://www.academia.edu/837228/Wish_you_were_here_Historic_inscriptions_from_the_North_Head_Quarantine_Station_Manly_NSW 

 The artworks which are planned, relate not only to these inscriptions but also to other sites and material related to their isolated geography and conceptual potential. Each site is in variable condition and has a different range of visitation.  Through the use of archival materials, objects and images, I aim to find ways to reinvest the layered palimpsest of the sites historical forms with renewed social value whilst mapping out their previous ideological referents. This work will avoid historical re enactment or referencing the heritage of the sites in a documentary form. It is the material and subtle forms that will be drawn from the site and the conceptual embodiment of the site which is brought forward into the final forms of the artistic work.

Cold Light showing as part of Frühlings Salon : Galerie Pavlova

This image will be part of the Frühlings Salon. A group exhibition within Galerie Pavlova. This Gallery has recently opened with the aim to be a premium platform for Europeans to experience the best in contemporary photography from Australia & New Zealand.

see image for map of the open weekend

Double Crossing

January 2014

@ White Space

What happens at the White Space when a bunch of experienced artists are given just one week to create a new work with another artist with whom they’ve never worked?

Fun, chaos and delicious disaster? Beauty, whimsy and all things sublime? The beginning of something? The end of art as we know it? Wretched works?  It’s all the drama of a double crossing for sure.

Celebrate the shakedown with us and as we publicly expose what scientists only dare to reveal behind locked lab doors.

Research team includes:
Alex Prado and Clayton Tremlett, Andrew Goodman with Oliver Cloke & Kathy Heywood and Scott Sanders, Gabrielle Brauer, Tara Gilbee and Heidi Romano

The elixir images

The elaboratory's elixir

This is another snap shot. More documentation and full outline to come. I guess that is the trick with keeping up making the work, documenting and posting.

Video of one of the rooms for 'The Elaboratory's Elixir'

Jacques Soddell 'The alchemical table' sound works (quick snap shot)

click on this link to see a short clip of one of the installations (Tara Gilbee and Jacques Soddell)


vimeo clip

or try this in url

https://vimeo.com/62221982

Part of the review article on ABC

Periscope, the flagship event of the Castlemaine State Festival's Visual Arts program, takes place across three unique sites. The Hunt and Lobb building, an old Police lock-up and Tute's Cottage, an original miner's cottage - decaying with the passage of time yet surrounded by an extraordinary garden, bursting with life.

Tute's Cottage is a sensory experience unlike anything I have encountered. As I wander from room to room I try to identify the various aromas and where they are wafting from. There are apothecary vessels of all shapes and sizes in this alchemic laboratory, and I am invited to participate and interact, making each encounter unique. The level of detail is extraordinary. I left feeling like I had just experienced something very special; although not certain what.

to read the full review:

http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2013/03/27/3724589.htm