Jennifer Van Ratingen, Collection, 2021, 81 x 60cm. Photography by Rachel Lai.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Within our daily lives we accumulate hundreds of trivial, seemingly meaningless items; receipts, shopping lists, post-its, etc. These forgettable items often become more and more removed from our sphere of daily thought, despite their ability to reflect our most deeply intimate, personal and vulnerable relationships. I wanted to explore this tension through my series of paintings rendering bits of paper more monumental in both scale and painterly consideration. By expressing the collected notes from my loved ones within the history of still life painting, I aim to simultaneously invite the viewer into these intimate relationships while emphasising the physical material qualities of the detritus collected in daily life.
JORJA RYNNE
”AGNETHA” and “ANGEL OF AIR”
MANNING MONITORS
Jorja Rynne, Agnetha. Video. 720x576 pixels, 1:30 minutes. Image courtesy of the artist.
ARTIST STATEMENT
i know it without a picture in my mind,
there is a reciprocity of being held and holding,
it is the mysterious pull,
the thread of resonance
that moves through all things,
a transmutation into softness,
and a vocation to the liminal,
i drop into a place of knowing,
and it holds me
i drop into a place knowing,
and i hold
FRANCIS CAI
”BIRD IN THE CAGE - SHADOWLANDS”
LANEWAY CAFE, WENTWORTH BUILDING
Francis Cai, The Strangers, 2020. 40 x 40cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
ARTIST STATEMENT
From the end of January 2020, I began recording an unexpected travel experience that lasted months. Stuck in lockdown in Shanghai, I encountered realms of starkness and loneliness. The images presented in this series can be thought of as mirages, capturing shards of my subconscious from this period of time.
Before the outbreak of the pandemic, people were already accustomed to all sorts of isolation. The cold air of a remote county in the North. A vast swimming pool of a tropical resort, empty but for a single person. Lights blazing from giant monitors in a city, overlooking strangers who appear like non-playing video characters. Bird in The Cage is an abstract depiction of such cold feelings.
We are always trapped in the cage of civilization, the cage of nature, the cage of margins. We are like homeless men who are in search of somewhere to settle down or hide.
Perhaps that is a more everlasting lockdown.
BLAKE MALONE
”DON’T THINK TWICE”
MANNING, LEVEL 1
Blake Malone, Nights in white satin, 2021. Oil on satin, 120 x 90 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Blake’s artistic practice involves a critical form of painting. Consciously changing his techniques and style painting to painting, he attempts to critique contemporary art’s tendency to become a marketable brand and commodifiable object; as a result of the growing impact of current political discourse on the art world.
ARYAN SETHI
”THE GIFT OF INDIA”
ARTBOX FISHER LIBRARY
Aryan Sethi, The Gift of India, 2021. White raku clay, terracotta, porcelain, earthenware clay, underglazes, satin glaze, shellac. Dimensions variable. Photography by Rachel Lai.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Embracing an art form iconic to Indian art, my wheel-thrown pots aim to immerse my audience in an authentic, cultivated, and sensory experience of India - a country where significant diversity permeates culture, religion, architecture, landscape, and language. My pots retain information inherent to each respective region of the country, with manifestations of temples, landscapes and languages achieved through distinct carving and surface treatment techniques.
ABIGAIL JARVIS
“UNTITLED (WE ALL NEED SOMETHING WATCHING OVER US)”
ARTBOX FISHER LIBRARY
Abigail Jarvis, untitled (we all need something watching over us) (detail), 2022, installation view, dimensions variable. Photography by Rachel Lai.
ARTIST STATEMENT
untitled (we all need something watching over us) utilises the material qualities of cotton fabric to adapt to its surrounding architecture, drawing the audience's attention to the space it is displayed and breaking the traditional artistic narrative. The draping of the untouched material contrasting with the taut blue horizon prompts audiences to consider material qualities and scale. Through creating a distinct line between blue and untouched calico, a sense of separation is created between the representation of a blue sky and the draped fabric. The changed physical quality of the fabric from the acrylic paint creates a sense of tension on the surface of the fabric. Inspired by Koji Enokura, the work aims to draw the audience's attention to material and installation in a minimalist way, whilst colour inspiration comes from Dan Flavin, along with his use of space. Audiences are encouraged to consider the work beyond the limits of traditional art, considering gallery spaces and the implications of institutions. untitled (we all need something watching over us) abstractly and minimally represents various landscapes depending on audience interpretation, ranging from a clear blue sky to a clear beach scene references the Australian experience and even notions of a flag.
Janet Ho, Jennifer Ho, Yuki Lai, Lara Ri, Porkhim Tang, Eliot Ernest Tompkins, Katrina Wan, Riki Wells, CAEL2072: Potter’s Wheel as a Sculptural Tool (detail), 2022, installation view, dimensions variable. Photography by Rachel Lai.
ARTIST STATEMENT
The ARTBOX cabinets on Level 2 and 3 of Fisher Library housed ceramic works created in the elective class “CAEL2072: Potter’s Wheel as a Sculptural Tool.” During the semester, students were asked to create a major work that focused on assemblage construction and to contemplate on the philosophy of the wheel throwing tradition.
LILY THOMAS-MCKNIGHT
”BIIYIRRI (BACKBONE)”
MANNING, LEVEL 1
Lily Thomas-Mcknight, Biiyirri (Backbone) (detail), 2022. Image courtesy of the artist
ARTIST STATEMENT
Biiyirri (Backbone) reflects on the importance of identity for First Nations peoples in a Western world. The series of charcoal and monoprint portraits depict songlines, mapping out the state of minds of the individuals represented regarding their cultural identity. Trace monoprinting and charcoal drawing are predominantly Western practices. I wanted to use a Western means of production in order to create a cultural work that comments on how Western influence has impacted Indigenous identity. The ghost prints in which the songlines fade into the background comment on how cultural knowledge and practice has been lost as a result of colonisation but also the notion of Aboriginality and the questioning of an individual’s cultural heritage.
Simon Baré, Just As I Remember: Fragments, Remembrances and Projections - Parts 2 and 3, 2022. Video still. Image courtesy of the artist.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Just As I Remember Part 2 & 3 explore the elusive and fragmentary nature of memory and experience, its representation and projection. They are also part of a larger assemblage that navigates art practices that refuse to be pinned down yet invite exploration and interpretation all the same.
BONNIE HUANG
“DRAIN CATCHER”
ARTBOX FISHER LIBRARY, LEVEL 2
Bonnie Huang, Drain Catcher, 2022. Found objects. Images courtesy of Estelle Yoon.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Amongst the sticky sinews of time and memory, a sense of absence and longing pervades. This sculptural landscape is an exploration into the textures of both private and collective desire, creating a space of elegiac reflection for people and memories of the past. Here, the idea of archive or library refers to the dismembered domestic and bodily artefacts that amalgamate into one— much like how a clogged drain is a collection of tangible mementos left by people from the past.
EMILY GREENWOOD
“O MALU’I ‘A TUPOU”
ARTBOX FISHER LIBRARY, LEVEL 3
Emily Greenwood, O maluʻi ʻa Tupou (detail), 2022. Textiles. Images courtesy of Estelle Yoon.
ARTIST STATEMENT
If Eurocentric art history is the standard, O maluʻi ʻa Tupou recontextualizes the standard to fit Greenwood’s Pasifika diaspora’s postcolonial framework. Greenwood continues to unravel ancestral histories through their postcolonial lens. Juxtaposing their contemporary punk sub-cultural influences from the post-Modernist period with their ancestral history, Greenwood has made a series of Tongan flags, all unique with different approaches to mark making. Using punk art making processes, Greenwood draws aesthetic influences from contemporary Eurocentric cultural icons like the Pearly Kings and Queens of London and Queer culture’s drag aesthetics. Greenwood explores the tongue-in-cheek side of punk, with spray painted slogans like ‘oku ‘ikai ke u lava ‘o lea faka- Tongan’ (English translation: ‘I can’t speak Tongan’) or ‘liliu mei he Google’ (English translation: ‘Translated from Google’). This cultural adaption is meant to be a means of soft and palatable political rejection of the expectation of Pasifika assimilation into Western culture. A flag represents who you are. Greenwood claims many identities, the two important ones being a Tongan and a feminist punk. Because who else would make a Sex Pistol’s inspired Tongan flag, if it was not Greenwood? The Sex Pistols sang God Save The Queen, yeah God save Queen Sālote.
ALI NOBLE & BRIGITTA SUMMERS
“THE PLANTS, THE PRESS AND THE PROCESS”
ARTBOX FISHER LIBRARY, LEVEL 4
Ali Noble & Brigitta Summers, The plants, the press and the process, 2022. Ink on paper. Images courtesy of Estelle Yoon.
ARTIST STATEMENT
The plants, the press and the process is a collaborative experiment between artists Ali Noble and Brigitta Summers. The artists work with each other, the plant life found on Sydney University campus, the SCA print room press, and, finally, with the vagaries of artistic ‘process’ itself.
The artists present a trilogy where each of them has made a work individually, the third and final work being a collaborative effort. Here you see the influences and interplay of Modernism, plant aesthetics and ‘thinking through touch.’