Goolugatup Heathcote nagolik Bibbulmen Nyungar ally-maga milgebar gardukung naga boordjar-il narnga allidja yugow yeye wer ali kaanya Whadjack Nyungar wer netingar quadja wer burdik  ∞  Goolugatup Heathcote nagolik Bibbulmen Nyungar ally-maga milgebar gardukung naga boordjar-il narnga allidja yugow yeye wer ali kaanya Whadjack Nyungar wer netingar quadja wer burdik  ∞  Goolugatup Heathcote nagolik Bibbulmen Nyungar ally-maga milgebar gardukung naga boordjar-il narnga allidja yugow yeye wer ali kaanya Whadjack Nyungar wer netingar quadja wer burdik ∞

Parralels of Place

Megan Christie, Lyn Nixon, Ian Williams and David Ledger

29 July to 3 September 2017

Parallels of Place looks at the intersection between aesthetic concerns of landscape imagery and the psychological impact of place. Bringing together a unique combination of artists, varying in age, gender and art practices the exhibition presents new perspectives on place. Lyn Nixon, Megan Christie, Ian Williams and David Ledger explore alternative perceptions of landscape and change through photography, furniture, painting and installation. Parallels of Place brings together a body of works that reflect the artists shared interests in the role of remediated imagery in representing, simulating or creating place.

THE CERTAINTY OF UPHEAVAL

Parallels of Place, presents an understanding of landscape in which

ecology, climate, geography and the visible shape and character of the

earth do not have one single relationship with humanity, but shift between

states of balance and tumult. Given enough time, shuddering earthquakes,

calving icebergs and species extinction will interrupt periods of stability,

before just as surely subsiding into illusory quietude.

MONUMENT

Monumental time - the time in which the isosceles of India bunched

up into sedimentary Himalayan folds - has no need for minutes, hours

or dynasties. On canvas, David Ledger reveals the stillness and slow

motion of monumental time as single dusks and dawns elapse, washing

inconsequentially over mountains and rivers. Each of these impassive

terrains welled up from Ledger’s imagining, without reference to named

or visitable sites. Their sentinel-like prominences and glassy waters seem

nonetheless fundamental and ancient, symbolic of the earthy arenas within

which life and culture churns. Atop these natural monuments David paints

the works of humanity, which cling at the landscape, emulating its longevity.

TURBULENCE

In Meckering, monumentality has given way. Scattered crumbling masonry,

cracked walls and broken lamp glass comprise the scars of 1968, when the

rocky earth leapt in oceanic waves and shook the town down. To measure

the legacy of this extraordinary quake, one looks not to the Richter Scale,

but to the resilient, things-will-happen Meckeringite outlook. Readiness

accompanies an acceptance of sustained potential catastrophe. From

a vein running between Meckering to a worldwide network of chafi ng

tectonic plates, Lyn Nixon takes the pulse of the earth, detecting and

recording the dispersed evidence - cracked plasterwork, rattling plates,

swinging lamps, seismic bass-note vibrations in the pit of your gut - of an

incessant, thumping core. Uncertainty reigns, she reminds us.

PRECARIOUSNESS

If land is the perennial protagonist of geological time, Megan Christie

identifies its antagonists: developers, prospectors and polluters whose

modification of land outstrips any ecological cycle of decline and renewal.

In riposte, Christie camouflages herself against nature, working to match its

slowness and wastelessness: endemic Australian hardwoods are fashioned

into objects that are resolutely useful, versatile and robust. Cloistered

within, a series of tableaux recount cautionary tales in which the course of

ecology is derailed by poachers, hunters, land clearers and unscrupulous

consumers. Christie marries storytelling, craftsmanship and function,

inculcating each length of timber with as rich a case for thoughtful land

management as possible.

TRANSCENDENCE

Power and precariousness pass back and forth between humanity and land.

Elsewhere, there is a second nature: built of electric light, RGB pixels and

binary information, where cycles of ecological damage and natural disaster

are absent. Working from the screen to the canvas, Ian Williams transcends

physical land in favour of laying down its essential and infinitely variant

counterpart: digital landscape. Herein, nature can be clicked on, inverted,

rotated, designed, accelerated or brought to a standstill. The terrains

Williams paints have no depth or history. Rather, they’re made of layered

surfaces: a rendered surface in digital game space; the flat computer

screen; the face of a canvas. These two-dimensional Arcadias might

seduce us beyond the façade, if it weren’t for Williams’ bright, eccentric

brushstrokes. Eddying oils remind us that a painting is no more (or, as

much) a window onto nature as a computer screen.

Sheridan Coleman

Upcoming Exhibitions

Visit

Goolugatup Heathcote is located on the shores of the Derbal Yerrigan, in the suburb of Applecross, just south of the centre of Boorloo Perth, WA. It is 10 minute drive from the CBD, the closest train station is Canning Bridge, and the closest bus route the 148.

58 Duncraig Rd, Applecross, Boorloo (Perth), Western Australia

Open 10–4 Tuesday–Sunday, closed public holidays. The grounds are open 24/7.