The illusion of remembering 9-30 May 2014

The illusion of remembering 9-30 May 2014 Rosemary Burke Ruth Frost Adam Geczy joybelle Kim Lehman Rae Marr Poimena Gallery Curated by Kim Lehman

On memory, and maybe art There is an argument that a considerable percentage of our current conscious knowledge is held in memory. As you read this you are drawing on memories of what you may or may not know about me, what you have read on memory even just a moment ago (but certainly over you lifetime), your opinions, beliefs and experiences in relation to memory, and life, and art. In the case of the latter arguably you would not be reading this without some interest in art, and this colours your understanding of what I am now saying. Of course, we are delving into other psychological constructs here, and even how memory works has been, and still is, debated by those interested in its epistemology. Here, though, my main concern is perhaps less esoteric. In an artistic sense I have a particular interest in the various ways in which we represent the past, in how memories are be reinterpreted in the present. For me, there is little doubt that memory and mind can mesh in incomprehensible ways, and that we do seem to build and modify our recollections as we move through our lives, conveniently reallocating emphasis and redistributing blame to suit our current state of awareness. We reconstruct reality to suit whatever has happened, and whatever is happening, in our lives. So, what does this mean for artists and art? How do these processes, for understanding of art, and, given that is what mostly happens, the consuming of art (it gets read, heard, felt, experienced, looked at, etc. ). There are, or course, numerous artists across various art forms/ disciplines that address memory in some way, too many for me to list without giving away my prejudices. But, I d have to say that French writer Marcel Proust s Madeleine moment In Search of Lost Time, Volume I, Proust as narrator, while attempting to recapture childhood memories, eats a piece of a Madeleine cake, with the following result: No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life me, it was me. (1) Proust tried to repeat the moment a number of times before he could recapture the memory again. The moment 1

...continued has become known as a Proustian memory or a Proustian rush. Many of you will know the sensation of such involuntary memory spurred by random sensory experiences. Do I digress? I think not. I am trying to illustrate the extent to which memory, in all its various manifestations, plays a role in our lives. Importantly, though, I am also clearly identifying literary example, where words lay over the page in such a lush and evocative manner the reader cannot fail to be recalling their own recollections of moments memorable. For me this is the key point. Any sensory, emotional or intellectual response to art is largely shaped by all that has gone before, all the little belief, that play a part in generating our response to what we see before us. personal and partially inexplicable way. However, I do believe that they all illustrate some aspect of memory that I think is both glorious in the works themselves and that will provide others with a glimpse of understanding. The second is related: I think you can make your own connections to the works via your memories, beliefs and experiences. This is not to make a potentially banal comment like the works speak for themselves, but rather to state that you have at your disposal the works, comments from the artists, this essay, and that rather large and quite often under-utilised resource, the human intellect. Read, look, and form an opinion. Make a link with something you see in the show and something you have seen somewhere else. Discuss it with a friend. Argue with my words. Look for more work by one of the artists that particularly inspired or engaged you. Leave the show and then recall it the next day the next week. By doing these things you will be experiencing both the works in this show and the illusion of remembering, and my job will be done. Kim Lehman Launceston, May 2014 You may notice that I have not referred to any of the works I have gathered for this show. There are two reasons for this. understanding of memory they resonate with me in a very (1) Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Volume I: Swann s Way (2003 Modern Library Paperback Edition), 2

Still Life: breathe in, breathe out, 2004/5 Mixed media including found objects, photographs, organic materials and wax Blood Vessels [1 & 2], 2003/4 Found objects, organic materials, wax, beads Untitled [1], 2006 8 Found objects, wax, beads, organic materials Untitled [2], 2006 8 Found objects, wax, beads, organic materials Untitled [1] (photo Simon Cuthbert) Rosemary Burke (1940 2008) Rosemary Burke was born in Hobart in 1940. She trained and worked as an art teacher at the Tasmanian School of Art in Hobart in the 1960s and 70s before earning a Graduate Diploma of Arts and Crafts (Fibre and Fabrics) from the Tasmanian State Institute of Technology in 1985. Throughout the 1980s and 90s she developed her professional art practice in assemblage and textiles exhibiting annually between 1983 and 1991 in galleries in NSW, VIC, TAS and SA. Between 1998 and 2005 she exhibited in a number of group exhibitions, including the 2003 Ten Days on the Island exhibition Art/ History at Woolmers Estate in Longford Tasmania, and two year-long installations in the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery: RUN: a tale of Hide and Seek (Dec 2001 - Nov 2002) and Still Life: breathe in, breathe out (Oct 2004 - Nov 2005). Her work is highly regarded for its originality, its diverse use of assemblage techniques and materials and its conceptual breadth. 3

Language Laboratory, 2014 4 Ruth Frost s art practice spans the disciplines of photography, video and sound exploring personal memory and the potential of the photograph to act as poetic metaphor for hidden memories of place. Recent highlights include participation in the Port Arthur Project in 2007, Trust in 2009 and Domain: a contested landscape in 2013 (all Ten Days on the Gallery in 2011 and a 2009 New Work grant from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council. Frost is currently a lecturer in Fine Arts at the Tasmanian College of the Arts, Hobart, University of Tasmania and is represented by Colville Gallery. ARTIST S STATEMENT Ruth Frost uses the physical character of interior space to evoke memory and a sense of the ephemeral. In 2013 Ruth Frost spent time observing the interior spaces of Domain House in Hobart. Despite its state of neglect, the building still retained its elegance and appeal. Frost used the passage of light as poetic metaphor for an ephemeral human presence and to draw attention to the enduring physical nature of the site through time. Her research is part of a larger dialogue within contemporary artistic practice that seeks to elicit engagement with place. Language Laboratory, 2014 Archival pigment print, 97 x 138 cm unframed Ground Floor Store, 2014 Archival pigment print, 97 x 138 cm unframed Ruth Frost

Eisenstein/Jugendstil, video still (detail) Eisenstein/Jugendstil, 2008 2 channel video Adam Geczy Dr Adam Geczy is an artist and writer who is a senior lecturer at Sydney College of the Arts. Working across media including video and performance as well as drawing and photography, recent exhibitions include Decapitated (2011) at the Györ Museum of Art, Hungary, BOMB (2013, with Adam Hill), at the Museum of Contemporary Aboriginal Art, Utrecht, Holland, and S/M Wonderland (2014) at the Australian Centre for Photography. He is also the writer of numerous books, including Art: Histories, Theories and Exceptions (2008), which won the Choice award for best art book in 2009. ARTIST S STATEMENT A product of a residency in Riga in 2008, Eisenstein/ Jugendstil is about not only Latvia but the former Eastern block, and the two separate generations: those who knew the old regime and those who did not. One channel is dark and brooding and the other positive and light, hence the play on the word Jugendstil literally young style. Some of the city s most famous buildings were designed by Mikhail Eisenstein, Sergei s father. I have cut the work in an Eisenstein manner as if the son were wreaking his revenge on the father (whom he didn t much like). 5

frisson, 2014 This installation approx. 2 cubed metres. joybelle ARTIST S STATEMENT Perfume bottles are intensely evocative precious sculptural response. The genesis for the work is intimate and arises from my own pleasure, seduction and delight in the sensuous allure of perfume. joybelle is an artist and writer who has recently completed a Doctor of Philosophy in Fine Art at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. The subject of her dissertation was Visions of Enchantment: Fictions of Intimacy within Contemporary Art. Her practice is primarily sculptural and installation-based and she exhibits extensively. The installation comprises a cluster of four large sculptures inspired by perfume bottles clustered amongst soft fabric, pink rice and snowdomes. Subtle fragrances and theatrical lighting collude with the sculptures, the frisson between the elements creating an elaborate vision of enchantment. Each enhanced sculpture represents a stylised and idealised fantasy, informed by designs articulated in contemporary perfume bottle design. Mushroom, Bulb, Teardrop and Folly connote magical, exotic and poetic associations, intimating a longing for states such as love and beauty. Frisson continues an ongoing lucid yet self-deluded quest to re-enchant the world through my art practice. Bulb, 53 x 36 x 36cm. Plaster, polyurethane surface, artists colours, teardrop-shaped glass ornament stopper, internal lighting, perspex plinth with perspex feet. Work includes material, snowdomes and crystal glitter. 6

Kim Lehman ARTIST S STATEMENT discontinuous narrative, allegory and stream of consciousness. In the series Memoirs Vicarious volunteers recreate memories of places the artist has been from a set of Fluxus-like instructions. The subsequent video recordings are then returned to the artist and edited with the instructions into formed by that person. This duality speaks to the ephemeral nature of both memory and the concept inherent in the work. Dr Kim Lehman is an academic, writer and artist and lives in Launceston, Tasmania. Shanghai memory #2, video still Memoirs Vicarious: Shanghai memory #2, 2014 Memoirs Vicarious: Paris memory #1, 2014 7

Light Traces series, Untitled [1], 2011 Ink, charcoal, pencil on kozo paper, 90 x 60 cm 8 Light Traces series, Untitled [2], 2011 Ink, charcoal, pencil on kozo paper, 90 x 60 cm Rae Marr was born in Sydney, Australia. Marr works predominantly in the medium of drawing and painting, and creates three-dimensional sculptural forms. Marr has a BFA with Honours from the National Art School, Sydney, and she recently completed her MFA at the Tasmanian College of the Arts and was awarded the Gwen Nettlefold Memorial Scholarship, University of Tasmania. Marr has had group and solo shows in Tasmania at Plimsoll Gallery and in Sydney at Depot Gallery, Palm House Botanic Gardens, Sydney University Tin Sheds, Level 4 Gallery and the Dobell Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Marr currently lives in Sydney and works as a sessional lecturer in drawing Rae Marr Untitled [1] ARTIST S STATEMENT To create the drawings I cast aged everyday objects using latex as a means to extrapolate surface residue and markings and I explored the application of photocopying the new soft material cast forms as a means of reducing and reworking an object s form. The processes of casting and photocopying objects enabled me to generate new readings of the objects while still referring to their origin through enduring elements. The reworking of objects is indicative of the manner in which our memories can create new realities and meanings from former experiences, and the process-based enquiry is a metaphor for how the capacity of memory and the materiality of objects will shift and change over time.

The illusion of remembering 7 30 May 2014 Curated by Kim Lehman Poimena Gallery Launceston Launceston Church Grammar School Button Street, Mowbray Heights, Tasmania Catalogue design and print by Uniprint u iprint u Televisions loaned by Harvey Norman Launceston Display cabinet loaned by Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston 2014 The artists and author Catalogue published by Dr Kim Lehman, University of Tasmania ISBN 978-1-86295-742-8 Cover Image: Rosemary Burke 2003/4, Blood vessel [1] (photo Simon Cuthbert)