Field of sorrow (Untethered)

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Background: The principal examinations in this creative work were devised through investigations into arcane imageries, evoking uncertain change. Supporting literature about contemporaneity was sourced through the work of philosophers Boris Groys (2016) and Peter Osborne (2018). Filmmaker and essayist Professor Hito Steyerl indicates that contemporaneity forms as an unstable present in conjunction with globalisation and capitalism. Correspondingly Groys deems our times as uncanny. Ideas of instability and trouble within globalised capitalism were also supported through the work of Consciousness Studies Professor, Donna Haraway (2016).

Contribution: The research examined ideas that contemporary art practices form within an enclosed anticipatory state of change, shaped by contemporaneity. The painting depicts an arcane central plant form derived from studies of European thistles. The areas surrounding this motif depict a visceral and bloody red soil, infused with the rise of additional emerging, strange vegetation. Relocated from one ‘world’ to another, the central plant is reminiscent of an incarnate ghostly persona affecting a turbulent and changing landscape. On the surface of the painting are seven blue, loosely hung threads, each suggesting the potential for dissolution; it is possible for the things that tether us to unbind and even unravel. Familiar and unfamiliar forms populate this painting to evoke a clash of worlds, and of times, where conflict and dominance conjure a chaotic epoch. The work outlines the notion that we exist within a globalised, unstable contemporaneity, within which we are presented with unfathomable and troublesome visions (Haraway 2016).

Significance: This creative work was selected by a panel of industry peers: Grazia Gunn, art historian and curator; Jenepher Duncan, art historian and curator and Jason Smith, Geelong Gallery Director. 6,000 visitors attended the exhibition, with a daily attendance of 110 visitors.