By Hannah Jenkins — 26 July, 2019
There is nothing as invisible as a monument. A statue casts the dead into oblivion. Memory fails and the ritual of building a statue for the sake of having a statue takes over. Drift past these anonymous soldiers, instead, crawl inside soft monuments and remember—remember…
By Eleanor Zurowski — 26 March, 2019
This is a sonic response to Connie Anthes and Julia Bavyka’s exhibition Soft Infrastructure at Firstdraft and is best listened to with headphones. The exhibition considered how to ‘actively dismantle’ or ‘think away’ from the institution. Felt, as a material, is formed by ‘matting, condensing and pressing’ through ‘applying heat, moisture and friction to entangle…
By Mariam Arcilla — 27 July, 2018
How do you conduct a search party for a phantom actress? Darren Sylvester’s solo show, Out of Life, now on view at Sullivan+Strumpf, is a speculative narrative on mortality, nostalgia and magic, orbiting around a 1970s-era space-suit Sylvester discovered at a Hollywood costumes auction. Metallic and radiant, with moon-grey sleeves and croissant-puff shoulder pads, its…
By Paul Kelaita — 2 February, 2018
I walk into Gallery Four at Firstdraft behind a guy, following the path he’s carving out through the crowd. Mounted at hip-height on the wall to our right is a small round plaster sculpture. A piece of toilet paper has been wedged into a tiny hole in its centre. The first thing the guy does…
By Rebecca Gallo — 23 November, 2017
What makes a chair a chair? Legs, a base, a back? How abstract can a chair become before it’s completely unrecognisable – before it turns into a creature or a sculpture or a hatstand? I remember walking through a room – I’m pretty sure it was at the National Gallery of Victoria, or maybe the…
By Sarinah Masukor — 17 November, 2017
For the group exhibition, INSIDE, curators Stella Rosa McDonald and Rafaela Pandolfini have brought together a collection of new and old works that signify unstable, recalcitrant and predominantly female bodies. Some of the nineteen artists included fit this interpretive framework plainly, while others stretch into more complex conceptual terrain – the body, if it is…
By Chris Oakey — 15 November, 2017
I went to see PAINT 17 because of a photo on the gallery website. It’s of a painting by Gary Smith that shows multiple layers of smeared, scraped, thick resin and paint in pinks and oranges and creams and yellows and reds, with bits of black in some places. In some parts the red is…
By Naomi Riddle — 3 November, 2017
For all its beauty, Sydney’s Observatory Hill is a site steeped in colonial history. On the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation – land that was never ceded – Fort Phillip was built in 1800. It was an important signal station and military outpost before Sydney Observatory was constructed in 1858. Now…
By Naomi Riddle — 12 October, 2017
‘Please do not touch’ announces the forthright sign, standing to attention at the entrance of Mikala Dwyer’s exhibition A shape of thought. In the gallery beyond lies a smorgasbord of options for the unfettered hand: a collection of copper pipe elbows, stones, coins, sunshine yellow fabric; steel and aluminium and plastic sculptures that have been…