2023: Precarious times

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This is the third major project for my Studio 2 course, as part of the Master of Fine Art program. This large scale, mixed-media installation exemplified the use of a conceptual framework and iterative installations to progressively develop work, and through the process suggest regenerative possibilities.

It was designed to warn of the accelerating impact of climate change while signalling the redemptive possibilities of nature. The final installation evolved from an earlier Studio 2 animation in which tumbling shapes suggested the use of a vertical flip book to convey time and motion in two dimensions. 

The concept was framed along cartography, calligraphy and oceanography lines, as exploratory prompts. This framework underpinned the project’s expansion over experimental installations as I effectively terraformed the Gossard space (coincidently a technique suggested by Donna Haraway as a way to rejuvenate our vulnerable planet, in her book Staying with the trouble : making kin in the Chthulucene). 

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of final installation of Precarious times, view 1 on 12 October 2023. Acrylic on 250 and 640 gsm paper, sizes variable. Wood painted white and portable white projector. 2023.

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of final installation of Precarious times, view 2 on 12 October 2023. Acrylic on 640 gsm paper, sizes variable, shapes made from plaster, wax, wood. 2023.
Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of final installation of Precarious times, view 3 on 12 October 2023.
Acrylic on 640 gsm paper, 56 x 76 cm, Shapes made from plaster, wax, wood. 2023.

2023: Carbonised

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This is another project for Studio 2, as part of my Master of Fine Art program. It consisted of a mournful, site-specific installation of charred cuttlebones, showing how a selected location informed a body of work. While continuing to memorialise endangered sea-life through cuttlebones, for this site specific project I entered the shadowy realm of museum storage the mausoleum of colonial trophies and taxidermy. Based on a dilapidated plan drawer this installation consisted of eight cuttlebones surrounded by pictorial labels, tags and flip books made from relief prints. The relief prints featured the contour lines of the cuttlebone.

This project was intended to create a mournful affect, with the charred cuttlebones symbolising the extreme consequence of global warming.

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of Carbonised installation, close up of eight casts and tags, 2023. Casts made from high compression gypsum, painted with acrylic, with twine and tags from 250 gsm paper. Cast sizes variable, approx. 24 x 9 x 3.5 cm. 2023.
Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of revised configuration of the Carbonised installation, for a meeting with my supervisor, 2023.

 

2023: Entombed in plain sight

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This is a project for my Master of Fine Art Studio 2 course. It consisted of an installation of bound cuttlebones, demonstrating innovation to transform an unsuccessful experiment into a beacon of hope. As shown in the image below this work features plaster-bound cuttlebones floating in space and time, trapped for eternity in acrylic trophy boxes. The work traverses a regenerative arc, first repurposed as a memorial to extinction and then evolving into a post-human life-form.

The use of green wax to coat the cuttlebones is symbolic. While originally a technical necessity for casting (green wax being the only colour available), the colour suggests chlorophyll and in turn photosynthesis, nature’s non-destructive way of converting light into energy.

Hence while intended to memorialise sea-life, colour and composition opened up the narrative possibility of an absurdist form of post-human life, and concurrently, the redemptive possibilities of solar energy. The intended affect was thus amusement, and hope at the transformative possibilities of recycling.

Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of plaster-bound cuttlebones in acrylic boxes on legs. Materials: cuttlebones, wax, plaster bandages, acrylic and metal. Dimensions: boxes 32 wide x 23 deep x 20 cm high, legs 38 cm wide x 45 cm high. Dimension per assembly approx. 34 cm wide and 65 cm high. Level 3 Building 49, RMIT 2023.
Photograph by Elizabeth Cole of plaster-bound cuttlebones in acrylic boxes, mounted on legs in the corridor, mobilised for flight. Level 3 Building 49 RMIT. 2023.

2023: Pigeons of Prahran Station

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I have recently been painting birds, for the sheer joy and challenge of capturing the magic of flight. This series, Pigeons of Prahran Station 2023, features birds that roost in an abandoned building near the train station.

2022: Pigeons of Prahran station

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A few pigeons have based themselves in a derelict looking building beside Prahran station on the Sandringham line. During my daily commute I take their photo. If I am lucky I catch one in mid flight. I use the photos as the basis for paintings.

2020: Resilient Women Travellers Series Two

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In reaction to COVID-19 restrictions, I escaped lock down as an armchair traveller, with a fascination for historical exploration of the Silk Road and its surrounds.  In particular, I focussed on the outsiders, those travellers who pushed the boundaries of societal and cultural expectation to forge their own paths. The Resilient Women Travellers Series Two presents six European travellers to Central Asia between 1860 and 1930:

  • Isabella Bird (1831-1904)
  • Mildred Cable (1878-1952)
  • Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969)
  • Mary Gaunt (1861-1942)
  • Ella Maillart (1903-1997)
  • Janet Wulsin (1894-1963)

The faceless images and use of aged, abandoned books reflect the erosion of our memory of them over time. The text overlay encapsulates their amazing life stories. These women defied convention to live extraordinary lives of intrepid travel. 

2019: Resilience in the natural world – Resilient Women Traveller Series

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The following works will feature in an upcoming joint show at Alternating Current (26 April to 18 May 2019). The show is titled Resilience in the natural world. Melody Spangaro and I have approached the theme of resilience from two different perspectives and dimensions (temporal and geographic), unified by the central theme of exploration of the natural world. I explore the resilience displayed by female travellers such as Isabella Bird, Mildred Cable and others in Central Asia between 1890 and 1930. My works consist of diptychs of the traveller and the landscape in which she travelled. The use of magenta references the colour coding of the Penguin travel series, in recognition of their travel writing. Closer to Melbourne and current time, Melody Spangaro has explored the visual representation of personal experiences and memories of insignificant natural environments. Through exploration of the treatment of abandoned objects, Melody highlights our degradation of the natural landscape, a landscape once as pristine as that explored by the travellers in my works.

 

Alternating Current Art Space- preparation for exhibition

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I have recently been exploring the use of real and/or appropriated images and memories to create visual narratives, based on my interest in European exploration of the Silk Road. The Resilient Women – Travellers series continues this interest by framing and focussing on the lives of European female travellers to Central Asia between 1860 and 1930. These women defied convention to live extraordinary lives of intrepid travel, motivated by a sense of adventure, and for some, faith. They included:

  • Isabella Bird (1831-1904)
  • Mildred Cable (1878-1952)
  • Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969)
  • Mary Gaunt (1861-1942)
  • Ella Maillart (1903-1997)
  • Janet Wulsin (1894-1963)

The works in this series consist of diptychs of the traveller and the landscape in which she travelled. The use of magenta in the work references the colour coding of the Penguin book series ‘Travel and Adventure’, in recognition of the fact that most of these women published accounts of their travels, and some made their living from such accounts.

Selected works (including those shown below) will be shown at the group show at Alternating Current Art Space in late April 2019.

Resilient Women- another view of Alexandra David-Neel

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This is another version of Alexandra David-Neel, based on a photograph of her outside her hermitage in the Himalayas.