9 Apr – 7 May 2016 Lismore Regional Gallery

Mothertongue looks at the innate human desire to forge connections with people and with place. A lost language of body messaging is uncovered by way of still and moving imagery. Messaging through conscious and sub-conscious movement, suggestion and gesture. Considering the body as a voice or as a place, and place as an extension of the body, these living stories are framed and served as chapters within a greater common narrative.

Largely a lens based work this portrait project sees both traditional and experimental methods of presentation and representation. This exhibitions motivation is to create a space in which signs and suggested symbols might reveal a truth that could otherwise be obscured by words.

Digital video manipulates and at times distorts the performance, duality, juxtaposition and contrast are repeated underlying metaphors for a primitive nature performing in a contemporary environment.

These processes and responses allow the review of the artists movement, frame by frame, inspecting and untying one gesture from the next. Alongside the salon hang of works serving as a self portrait, 2 short films are screened.

 These short films, presented as living stories, serve as short chapters within a greater narrative.

Marry My Fear (film #1)

This video was made in 2016 as a self portrait, a purging of confused emotion as well as an attempt at self understanding as to why I feel the way I do. At the time these questions were recurring, refusing to leave me alone until I did something about it.

So it is with this work that I ask what is this desire to marry really about?

Is it really about realising a true connection with another person? Then to recognize and celebrate this remarkable circumstance by hosting a wonderful event in which WE are the guests of honor!

Is it expected? Is it predictable of course the answers here are subject to the individual, to the social norms of any particular culture. commitment and romance or is it about fear and safety?

Marriage is a topic that has recently been in the medisa Why do we want to marry another person? To be tied to them through words and traditional systems of belief, an interesting concept of human nature that has spanned

How does it effect women individually and socially? The implications of commitment or casual relations via the titles we give them like husband, partner, lover, boyfriend or friend.

What title best suits our situation? Marry My Fear speaks of the words unspoken, suggesting beliefs that are unconsciously held. Once this belief becomes conscious it becomes a choice, and once a choice it has the ability to change. To attempt to change our mind is ultimately an attempt to change who we are, who we see ourselves as and who we believe we should be.

This film portrays the upper body as an abstracted, dual figure, bound, breathless and in conflict with itself. This duality can be seen as 2 incomplete halves attempting to yet struggling to make a flawless whole.

I am all of theses things both specifically & simultaneously, all these things exist within me; pleasure/ pain, safety/danger, beauty/shame, hunger/boredom, contentment/drive.

Do I contradict myself? yes, I contain many facets, I am large, always asking questions and forever wanting more.

            

     

      

      

Film #2 Burn a hole in your safety

What role does culture and environment play on our physicality? Do these signs go unnoticed in the daily routine and what do our routines and automated movements say about us? How aware of our physical self are we? and how are our need & wants portrayed?

Opening night Friday 8th April 2016 To be opened by Angela Goddard 9 Apr – 7 May 2016 Lismore Regional Gallery Gallery Upstairs

Also exhibiting The Art of Nutter Buzacott, INSIGHT the Hermannsburg Potters of Moreton Bay and Trip by Jasper Hills. Lismore Regional Gallery http://www.lismoregalleryorg/cp_themes/default/4col.asp?c=496

“A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body. Gestures differ from physical non-verbal communication that does not communicate specific messages, such as purely expressive displays, proxemics, or displays of joint attention.^[1] Gestures allow individuals to communicate a variety of feelings and thoughts, from contempt and hostility to approval and affection, often together with body language in addition to words when they speak.

Gesture processing takes place in areas of the brain such as Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, which are used by speech and sign language.^[2] In fact, language is thought to have evolved from manual gestures.^[3] The theory that language evolved from manual gestures, termed Gestural Theory, dates back to the work of 18th-century philosopher and priest Abbé de Condillac, and has been revived by contemporary anthropologist Gordon W. Hewes, in 1973, as part of a discussion on the origin of language.^[4]“

Other research

http://www.all-about-body-language.com/