Barriers, baubles & bubbles
Few would argue that society is difficult to fathom right now, a seething confusion of humanity that seems to be hell-bent on the decimation of near-on everything. It sometimes feels as if we’re the characters in The Garden of Time, J. G. Ballard’s tale of woe from which this exhibition takes its name. Secreted away behind closed doors we can convince ourselves that we’re stalling the inevitable knowing full well that the throng will catch us at some point.
In Ballard’s story, exquisite crystal flowers on the verge of extinction have the ability to push back the inevitable. As the end draws closer, Count Axel fetches another of these withering time flowers whose powers are waning for his unnamed wife, the Countess. The riotous throng quelled, they can return to the serenity of their existence in their villa tending to their possessions and quests for knowledge for a little while longer.
Entering this sensitively curated exhibition is to attain that same peace. The madness of the outside world momentarily stunned, as if these uncomplicated and enticing artworks are the flowers, only idiosyncratic and with deeper reach. These glistening jewels exude peculiar charms, and these six artists — three each from Australia and the Netherlands — take you along on a magical ride as they mull over existence.
Contrasting with a traditional palette of ochres and earthy reds, Evelyn Malgil’s paintings with their acidic acrylic hues feel rebellious. Her work focuses on Winniper Springs in Warmun country in Western Australia, a sacred site that she refers to as her “… family place”. In Untitled, 2023 she depicts a bold blue waterhole in Winniper Springs, the Ngarrangkarni (Dreaming) site for the sand frog. It provides year-round respite and hydration, even during the dry season. But here it is surrounded by a burning red, as if pale skin has been out in the sun for way too long. In Winuba, 2022 a snake is looking for water in the very same area, an oblique nod to climate concerns and Australia’s often problematic relationship with water — either not enough or too much or some entity with too much control.
Daan Den Houter’s Untitled_dot_012023, 2023, with its pooling blue epoxy resin meticulously overlaid on a small mahogany panel connects and contrasts with Evelyn’s loose brush work. Experimental, elegant, almost engineered, there’s conflict between man-made and natural beauty. Here the seas have risen to create a wooden lake, one surrounded by smooth water, a sublime play on humanity’s Sisyphean struggle with nature. Daan’s second piece, UNTITLED_STACK_L_0223, 2023, scales up significantly, and this time it is the mahogany that encases the resin, a series of ponds in various psychoactive hues suggest an interference, but it is under control.
The passing of time is important to Sanne Bax. On long hikes, most recently in Southwestern United States, inspiration strikes and ideas germinate. Back in the studio she spins sheep’s fleece, dyes it, loops wool into carpet crafting it into life-size works, all the while reflecting on her experiences in nature as she works with her labour-intensive processes. Whimsical and cosmically-hued, her Joshua trees beguile with their unusual colours. A signal that they are dying out, or are they morphing as a result of the perilous future they face as human encroachment limits their range? Hard to know as they sprout, sprawl and dance gleefully across the room.
Nearby, UFOs hover on a wall, their faintly fluorescent shadows are not of this world. Adam Norton’s wry humour never ceases to bring joy, often masking more serious messages. Using synthetic polymer paints with retina-blitzing qualities and applied directly to serving trays, he presents a riveting typology of flying saucers. His inspiration comes from various sightings drawn from UFOlogists and media, which he then transcribes into painted form. Over the years he’s come to notice how descriptions of sightings, and therefore depictions, tend to mirror the times. And almost as fascinating is how technological advancement has not necessarily resulted in clearer images. Rather, they’re fuzzier thanks to video recordings on handheld mobiles. Regardless of the quality of his source material, his images engross.
Back on the ground, Anique Weve is sitting on a bus in Los Angeles. She’s peering through a window from behind a sheer fabric waiting patiently for an image to emerge from thin air. With a swipe, she’s captured a frame featuring LA’s iconic palm trees rising from a smoggy beige haze. Trading her Mamiya 67 for an iPhone (simultaneously a symbol of social distance and connection) and blowing the file up to 158 x 120 cm, digital noise is added as another layer. It’s apt given her LA location where celebrities playfully hide from the paparazzi that they so desperately need; to keep them current and us interested. It’s one of two images on show from her series Blinds. Much smaller in scale, and captured on her beloved 67, Beacon masks its subject further adding a hint of social nuance. Frosted glass fused with a wire grid alludes to barriers, both seen and unseen. By utilising layers, Anique offers us a safe distance to observe her netherworlds quietly, keeping the messiness of human emotion safely under wraps.
Another Sun, Vivian Cooper Smith’s intergalactic images, with their loitering bolts and jolts of jolly colour reminiscent of CD reflections, are as calming as they are electrifying. Layers of data dance above calm seas conjuring invisible signals and wavelengths, the very ones we’ve tapped into to communicate across time zones. But these ones feel extraterrestrial, and their buzzing and murmuring seems to be eternal. Captured in camera with a diffractive grate mounted on the lens, these abstracted sunrises and sunsets could well be from another galaxy, and it’s impossible to not fall under their spell.
I often find myself wanting to forget what is going on outside my four walls: war and strife, misery and hate, an endless parade of narcissistic behaviour from the biggest stars to the smallest wannabes, and every day there’s something new to be temporarily shocked by, something that Russell T. Davies addressed in his dystopic series Years and Years. And while everything seems to change, nothing does.
Despite the surrounding discord, there’s much to enjoy in this perceptive collection of works, not just the attention to research and process that all of the artists exhibit, but how their very different approaches sit together in harmony. Ballard wasn’t really referring to the disintegration of our environment, and neither are these works directly but the way they sit together invites us to think about existence as the throng continues to hum outside.
David Wills, February 2024
David Wills is an artist who writes. Working predominantly with photography, he tends idiosyncratic archives that map, measure and catalogue society’s detritus. Whether creating large-scale photographic installations or websites, his vigilant street-based practice relies on walking allowing him to document the ephemeral traces of human inhabitance. David completed his PhD at the Australian National University. His work has been for selected for the National Photography Portrait Prize and published in Photofile, Time Out and (not only) blue. He lectured in photography at the Australian National University, National Art School, Sydney College of the Arts and the University of Newcastle for ten years before moving to the Netherlands. His editorial contributions include Unseen Amsterdam, Holland.com, SuperKaleidoscope, Art Guide Australia and Muse. He edited I amsterdam’s cultural website and has worked for various EU-funded research projects concerned with urban geography.
Samantha Ferris 