Receive and transmit

Full description

BACKGROUND The Director of 24 HR Art, The Northern Territory Centre for Contemporary Art, invited Louise Weaver and Peter Ellis to produce a duo exhibition that would exemplify their shared research interests in transformative practice, metamorphosis, the surreal and the shamanistic. The resulting exhibition explored such shared affinities, including the imaginative power of unconventional imagery. Peter Ellis is known for his innovative use of animal imagery. He invents hybrid creatures that inhabit incongruous bizarre spaces. His paintings and works on paper have the essence of eastern calligraphy, scientific drawing and idiosyncratic surreal imagery. CONTRIBUTION One of the works Ellis exhibited, Receive and Transmit, forms part of an ongoing series of works that research the use of automatic drawing as understood in terms of Surrealist philosophy. The initial automatic drawing is further adapted through research into aspects of scientific and Chinese caligraphic markmaking. The image shows a strange bear-like creature operating an industrial machine; an accident is in progress caused by the flight of a distracting dragon fly. The work continues the artist's long standing research into aspects of animisim and transformation. SIGNIFICANCE The gallery 24 HR Art (renamed Northern Centre for Contemporary Art (NCCA) in 2013) receives Northern Territory Government and Australia Council funding; its website noting that it is the "leading centre for contemporary visual art in the The Northern Territory, bringing together diverse communities of artists and audiences to engage with contemporary ideas and practices. Both Ellis and Weaver are highly respected and influential in their fields and have also exhibited at venues such as National Gallery of Victoria, Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland and Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.