Timelesscataloguepdf

english and italian

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catalogue of works

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timeless | senza tempo

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timeless | senza tempo : in equilibrio tra azione e effetto. renata summo-o’connell “acts have their effects even if no one receives them” / “le azioni producono un effetto anche se nessuno le riceve. “1 L’ evento che è poi divenuto Timeless | Senza Tempo, è stato immaginato in un momento in cui, mentre sembrava che l’Europa fosse messa in questione nel suo già complesso ruolo nel contesto internazionale, un’ onda di rivoluzioni senza precedenti scuoteva il mondo arabo prima di evolversi in gigantesca ondata di interrogativi che ha penetrato tutto quello che si identifica come mondo occidentale. In quel momento di “ occupy everything ” si e’ sperimentato tra l’ altro una comunicazione intensa ed efficace tra le comunità artistiche e teoriche del mondo, dove, soprattutto grazie alla comunicazione immediata facilitata dalla rete, piani teorici e pragmatici si sono intrecciati e hanno interagito rapidamente e costantemente in una maniera mai vista prima.

Timeless | Senza Tempo è nata come un’investigazione nel momento passato, presente, futuro, nell’incisione che la trasformazione produce irrompendo nel tempo, nella realtà percepita. La ricerca della filosofa contemporanea Elizabeth Grosz, un riferimento importante nel lavoro curatoriale ad Artegiro, è stato il mio punto di partenza. Per portare oltre questo dialogo, ho voluto confrontare lo spettatore provocando una risposta alla domanda di Grosz stessa: che effetto producono le nostre vite, le nostre azioni? E se nessuno le ricevesse?

Ho proposto agli artisti Salvatore Calì ( Italy), Daphne Cazalet ( India/ Uk), Mahony Kiely ( Australia), Anita Matell ( Sweden/ France) di coinvolgersi in questo discussione conoscendo la loro opera che in modi diversi mette in discussione la percezione della nozione stessa del tempo. Le loro quattro istallazioni in Timeless, audaci quanto coraggiose, propongono differenti nozioni della vita stessa, del tempo e della trasformazione, aprendo una discussione etica di azione e effetto.

La vita come esercizio insieme biologico e visionario all’interno della natura in Shapeshifter, la scelta di Calì di connettersi con il suolo, le piante, le rocce, coincide anche con il collegarsi ad un progetto di conoscenza universale dinamico e in evoluzione. Il suo distacco dalla tradizone occidentale che interpreta o esamina la natura, inizia invece un dialogo che è allo stesso tempo contemplazione performativa aprendo tra l’altro nuove modalità per immaginare il discorso artistico.

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elizabeth grosz interview with elizabeth grosz by robert ausch, randal doane and laura perez members of the found object editorial colllective, usa

Continuità e lacerazione in un processo di trasformazione linguistica e culturale in Cazalet, complicano ulteriormente una riflessione postcoloniale che apre in verità uno squarcio postcoloniale. Fragmented Ripples è un’esplorazione della diaspora indiana ma anche un tentativo di sviluppare un nuovo linguaggio con nuovi segni e nuovi tempi, reinventando l’ estetica tradizionale, rappresentando uno straniamento che propone nuovi strumenti espressivi e nuovi contesti.

In Aftermath, Kiely coltiva la complessità della realtà in quanto “accadimento” circostanziale, nei suoi diversi piani di azione, strato dopo strato, catturando, nel contesto drammatico del fenomeno naturale dell’incendio, l’esplosiva energia di sopravvivenza dove il “bushfire” australiano, dissotterra, letteralmente, nuove possibilità per l’artista non solo di rapportarsi al territorio e le sue comunità, superando la tentazione di ricostruire, ma piuttosto di continuare una decostruzione che apre la strada a nuovi contesti.

“Becoming” di Anita Matell è una ricerca dolorosa e spietata nella trasformazione, attraverso un’ istallazione introspettiva che investe lo spettatore ad un livello molto profondo. Delicatamente in alcuni casi, quasi brutalmente in altri, Matell affronta il processo del cambiamento stesso, dove il prospetto aristotelico della trasformazione dal più basso livello di potenzialità al più alto stadio di attualità, si sviluppa in un “devenir” Deleuziano, per poi deviare verso una riflessione molto personale, al cui centro e’ la donna, riflessione sul “divenire” compreso come “provenire”, nel senso di appartenenza e desiderio di appartenenza.

Timeless| Senza tempo presenta film, fotografia, scultura, pittura, terreno, sabbia, materiali carbonizzati, musica nelle varie istallazioni. Le istallazioni sono potenti quanto effimere: la pittura di alcuni artisti direttamente sulle pareti della galleria per esempio e/o il lloro uso di sabbia e altri materiali deperibili, scompariranno quando le istallazioni saranno smontate. Il desiderio di essere trasformati in quanto parte della fatica stessa ormai condivisa, in questo senso viene esteso come un invito allo spettatore, in equilibrio tra azione e suo effetto, proprio come si voleva.

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Renata Summo-O’Connell e’ Direttore e Curatore ad Artegiro.

timeless | senza tempo: between action and its effect. renata summo-o’connell “acts have their effects even if no one receives them “ 2 The concept for Timeless | Senza Tempo was created in a period when, while Europe seemed, yet again, to be profoundly questioned in its already complex international role, a revolutionary wave without precedents shook the Arab world before becoming a giant flow interrogating the majority of the Western World. In that period of “occupy everything”, an intense and effective communication connected the artistic and theoretic communities around the world, where, especially thanks to the internet, theoretic and pragmatic levels constantly met and interacted.

The concepts around Timeless | Senza Tempo were therefore an investigation in “the moment”, past, present and future, in “the knick of time” - the cut that transformation produces irrupting in reality as we perceive it. Contemporary philosopher Elizabeth Grosz’s work, an important point of reference in Artegiro’s curatorial work, has been my departure point for this artistic investigation. To could extend this discussion further I wanted to confront the viewer eliciting a response to Grosz’ question: what effects have our lives, our actions? And do they even if no one receives them?

I proposed artists Salvatore Calì (Italy), Daphne Cazalet (India / Uk), Mahony Kiely (Australia), Anita Matell (Sweden / France ) to engage in this debate knowing that their work engage in very different ways with questions of perceptions of time.

Theirs are four courageous as well as daring installations that confront us with their different notions of life itself, of time and transformation, debating the ethics of relationship between act and effect.

Life as biological and visionary exercise within nature, in Calì ’ s “Shapeshifters”, the artist’s choice to connect physically with the soil, plants, rocks, coincides also with connecting with an evolving and dynamic universal project of knowledge. His detachment from a Western artistic tradition that interprets or examines nature, initiates instead a dialogue that is a performative contemplation, opening new ways to imagine artistic discourse itself.

The continuity and rips in cultural and linguistic transformation in Cazalet’s work further complicate, amongst other things, a postcolonial reflection, giving way rather to a postcolonial rupture. “Fragmented ripples” is an exploration of the Indian

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elizabeth grosz [interview with elizabeth grosz by robert ausch, randal doane and laura perez members of the found object editorial colllective, usa

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diaspora but also the development of a new language with new signs and reinventing traditional aesthetics, in the actual fact enacting a withdrawal from it, proposing new expressive tools and contexts.

In “Aftermath” Kiely cherishes the complexity of reality as “ happening” in all its layers, capturing in its dramatic context an explosive survival energy where the Australian bushfire unearths, literally, new possibilities for the artist not only to connect with territories and their communities, overcoming temptations to reconstruct, but rather continuing a deconstruction that gives way to new contexts.

Anita Matell ‘s “Becoming” is a painful, relentless search in transformation confronting the viewer at very deep levels. At times gently at times almost brutally, Matell faces the process of change itself, where Aristotle’s prospect of change from the lower level of potentiality to a higher level of actuality turns into a Deleuzian “Devenir”, to finally revolve into a very personal, woman-centered reflection upon the “ Divenire” understood as “coming from” rather than the “becoming” as belonging and longing of belonging.

Timeless | Senza Tempo ‘s changing installations are widely comprehensive including film, photography, sculpture, painting, soil, sand, carbonised matters, music. Installations are as harsh as ephemeral as some artists‘s paint on the walls of the gallery and/or use of sand and perishable materials will disappear when the installation will be dismantled.

The desire to be transformed as part of the overall effort, in this sense is extended as an invitation to the viewers of the exhibits, in a balance indeed between act and effect.

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Renata Summo-O’Connell is Artegiro Director and Curator.

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shapeshifters Page

salvatore cali

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salvatore calì, “shapeshifter – antico ulivo (settembre duemilaundici)”, stampa digitale su dibond. 105x70 cm. 2012

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salvatore calì, “shapeshifter – argimusco (ottobre duemilaundici)”, stampa digitale su dibond. 105x70 cm. 2011

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salvatore calì, “shapeshifter – edera (marzo duemiladodici)”, stampa digitale su dibond. 92x220 cm. 2012

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salvatore calì, “shapeshifter – piave (giugno duemilaundici)”, stampa digitale su dibond. 75x50 cm. 2011

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salvatore calì, “orizzonte da montefiascone – 120° sud”, inchiostro micropigmentato su carta cotone magnani. 70x42 cm.

2012

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salvatore calì, “orizzonte da montefiascone – 240° ovest”, inchiostro micropigmentato su carta cotone magnani. 70x42 cm.

2012

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salvatore calì, “canicola”, progetto per installazione video. 16:9 5’. video monocanale in loop. sound courtesy nasa e jet propulsion laboratory. 2012

artist statement

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Cerco di dare voce e visibilità a ciò che apparentemente è invisibile e che sempre più sta diventando parte del nostro vivere quotidiano.

Nell’interstizio tra queste due realtà si attua il fare dell’arte e dell’opera che come “sostanze mediali”, catalizzano nuove possibilità di essere cittadini della Terra.

l'esplorazione ( e l'esplosione) dell'invisibile marco trulli La convinzione che ci sia un legame energetico che stringe corpo umano e contesto ambientale in un connubio inestricabile è alla base di molta parte del lavoro di Salvatore Calì, in cui il corpo (il suo) perde confini e si disperde nella natura, “rivestendo” di pelle umana cascate, alberi, luoghi propulsori di un'energia ancestrale. Pensa sostanzialmente ad un mondo fatto di piccole storie brulicanti, di singole persone, come fantasmi o ologrammi, rimasti intrappolati per un eterno momento in uno spazio, diventandone irrisolubilmente parte. Siamo parte di una concezione esplosa di geografia, i luoghi ci sopravvivono ma noi ne provochiamo, con la nostra presenza, mutamenti sensibili o irreparabili, per cui ne diveniamo parte, continuando a portarceli dentro a nostra volta. Ed è proprio questa visione che determina la sua azione, tutta diretta a materializzare l'invisibile, a dare corpo e immagine all'aria, a ciò che sta in mezzo tra gli uomini e il mondo. Questa invisibilità è campo dell'esperienza di Calì, è la distanza che l'artista cerca di colmare attraverso azioni “gentili” e di riconoscimento nei confronti della natura stessa (come ad esempio in Holographic touch e in altri video). La volontà di esplodere una visione geografica convenzionale porta l'artista a sperimentare nuove tecnologie in grado di espandere la visione di ciò che ci sta attorno, ampliando l'orizzonte visivo e ricostruendo una vicinanza sensibile ai luoghi. Tutto ciò avviene nel disegno, che“è sempre superiore alla realizzazione per la qualità del desiderio che esprime” e che qui si manifesta quale mezzo in grado di elaborare una geografia immaginaria che consente all'artista di interiorizzare i luoghi e di tradurli in texture di linee, forme naturali costruite su ossessioni lineari. C'è un processo di astrazione e di sintesi che Salvatore Calì intende portare in atto nei suoi disegni, nel tentativo di una ricostruzione simbolica dell'universo partendo dall'accostamento maniacale di punti e di linee che, messe le une vicine alle altre, disegneranno una dimensione magica di una nuova geografia.

G. Di Pietrantonio, Flash Art» n. 152 ott./nov. anno 1989, p. 103

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Marco Trulli e’ un curatore e critico letterario interessato in arte contemporanea italiana | Marco Trulli is a curator and art critic interested in Italian contemporary art .

intervista con salvatore calì renata summo-o’connell 1. Aspetti della tua produzione artistica sembrano particolarmente interessati alla tua stessa figura inserita nello spazio reale, in contesti naturali intendendo per ciò spazi aperti dove non esistono tracce dell'insediamento urbano.

Potresti commentare o sviluppare questa osservazione spiegando possibilmente i motivi per questi parametri che suggeriscono una metodologia ed un sistema di idee?

R. Mi interessa la volontà di comunicare una particolare visione del mondo, ed essa inevitabilmente parte da me, dalla mia persona per confluire poi, tramite l’azione-opera nella coscienza collettiva e nello spazio del reale. Il mio amore e il dialogo-contatto con la Natura inevitabilmente entrano nel mio fare, credo che per l’uomo occidentale, in questo contesto storico pregno di forti cambiamenti, sia necessario che riporti il suo centro in se stesso e nella natura. Sto meditando e agendo un progetto, dove il corpo non è più quello mio ed è inserito in contesti urbani, questi ultimi nella mia visione sono “natura naturata” ci pre-esistono e hanno memoria dei nostri effimeri passaggi.

1bis. Esiste il rischio di saturazione nella pratica artistica che si concentra sul corpo stesso dell'artista?

R. Il corpo è l’interfaccia della “coscienza agente” nella materia è parte fondante di ogni azione, non credo sia possibile la saturazione nella pratica artistica in quanto, è quel mezzo che la permette.

2bis. Che valore ha la tradizione artistica per te? esistono istanze di continuità per te e se sì in che senso?

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R. Hanno rilevanza nella mia ricerca più le correnti artistiche che i singoli artisti, diciamo che ho punti di riferimento d’ispirazione che in questo momento della mia ricerca sono importanti, come Joseph Beuys del quale mi piace molto il suo lavoro in “Difesa della Natura” e il suo essere uno sciamano-artista. Di Marina Abramovich che dire, ricordo che da piccolo dopo aver visto una sua performance con Ulay ho praticamente deciso di praticare l’arte. Mi piace Bill Viola perché ha la capacità di indurre, nei suoi video e installazioni, stati contemplativi e spirituali. E altri come Gina Pane, Andy Goldsworty, Luigi Ontani, in particolare mi va di citare Marko Pogacnik artista e geomante sloveno che negli anni 60 ha co-fondato il gruppo concettuale OHO di Lubiana con il quale ho studiato e collaborato a progetti di arte per la Terra.

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2. Vi sono artisti non contemporanei che hanno particolare rilevanza nel tuo percorso artistico e nel tuo lavoro attuale e perché? Esistono artisti viventi che svolgono un ruolo simile o altro ruolo?

R. Possiamo dire che non esiste continuità nella vita che procede per salti quantici? Credo che la tradizione artistica è qualcosa che è legato al DNA delle culture e delle persone che ne siano coscienti o no, in tal senso tutta la “tradizione artistica” è in ciascuno di noi e questo ne fa la continuità, è tutta lì in un punto del mio presente pronta a parlarmi.

3. Che importanza hanno i dibattiti contemporanei attuali nel campo dell'arte internazionale per te?

L'ambiente artistico italiano- se ciò esiste secondo te - occupa una rilevanza maggiore per te ed il tuo lavoro rispetto a quello internazionale? Quali sono i motivi dell'una o l'altra posizione?

R. Se tutto ciò serve a far crescere il granoturco allora è buono, direbbe un curandero andino, personalmente aggiungerei: per crescere, il grano, non ha bisogno solo di acqua ma anche di amorevoli cure.

Credo che il luogo e il “clima” culturale che frequenti e vivi influenza per risonanza (empatia) la propria visione che a sua volta influenza il tuo spazio vitale e il tuo agire. Sicuramente uno sguardo oltre i propri orizzonti aiuta a comprendere meglio se stessi, le proprie relazioni e il luogo in cui si vive.

3bis. Sei solo o ti senti tale nella tua ricerca artistica? un artista deve essere solo?

R. Non riesco a pensarmi isola -anche se isolano lo sono di nascita-, mi piace relazionarmi con altri artisti e con la loro ricerca, cercando in questo un accrescimento. A volte un’improvvisa ispirazione nasce semplicemente da una frase che mi è stata detta. Quando sento solitudine è perché sto guardando troppo fuori da me. La vita è piena di incontri.

4. La critica d'arte oggi svolge un ruolo particolarmente potente rispetto ai mercati: quanto vera o meno è questa affermazione per te?

R. Il mercato è importante in quanto, nell’attuale società, non abbiamo altre metodiche per potere continuare a produrre il proprio lavoro, così la critica d’arte, a mio avviso, ha assunto un forte ruolo in quanto è capace, per sua natura di indirizzare il gusto e l’interesse, e in questo processo a volte si dimentica di qualcosa o qualcuno.

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R. Oddio, penso che un artista responsabile e cosciente sa di dare il suo contributo al “linguaggio del mondo” che è personale e condivisibile allo stesso tempo. Considero il lavoro del critico come un importante ruolo propedeutico e di “traduzione” alla comprensione allargata dei linguaggi dell’arte.

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4bis. Qual'è il tuo rapporto con la critica? e con la ricerca? hanno valore ? che tipo di ricerca un artista dovrebbe svolgere?

5. Esiste una relazione tra arte e società nella tua visione? In altre parole se il contesto politico/sociale conta per te, cosa vorresti che la tua arte producesse ad un livello pubblico?

R. Preferirei parlare della relazione tra arte e vita, in quanto la società e la politica sono presenze “ovvie” nel mio vissuto di uomo occidentale. Ricerco la relazione tra le cose, interessandomi più alle vicinanze che alle distanze.

Credo che l’arte mostrata e vissuta ha necessita e non può fare a meno di entrare in relazione con il sociale e il politico, almeno come responso-abilità verso la biosfera di cui siamo parte. Mi piacerebbe che il mio fare d’arte producesse un nuovo e un diverso sguardo sul mondo, un allargamento della coscienza personale e sociale.

5bis. L'arte dovrebbe essere una ricerca personale o collettiva? ha senso che un artista abbia un manifesto? non vi è il rischio che perda di vista un cammino più squisitamente autentico?

R. Di mio non amo molto i manifesti o le adesioni, credo che essi sono necessari a volte per mettere ordine, consolidare o dare forza a un impulso di ricerca nascente. Per me l’arte è ricerca personale, che è costantemente in contatto con una mente collettiva, - il campo morfogenetico, questo campo di informazione è stato teorizzato dal biochimico e filosofo Rupert Sheldrake -, al quale tutti contribuiamo creativamente dando e ricevendo informazioni, in tal senso ogni contributo “all’Informazione” è un percorso personale e squisitamente autentico.

6. Sembri privilegiare film(meglio forse utilizzare la parola video?), fotografia e disegno - hai considerato altri media o multimedia nella tua espressione e quali sono i motivi per la tua scelta?

R. Nella mia prima mostra (1987) ho usato una fotocopiatrice Xerox per produrre immagini che erano ricerche e sperimentazioni nel campo performativo e della poesia visiva, successivamente un amico mi ha fatto notare come tutti i mezzi da me usati sono in qualche modo legati alla luce, anche nei disegni, cerco di plasmare, modulare campi di luce, essa in qualche modo è una costante. Ogni mezzo che uso è funzionale all’idea intuita, e alla mia capacità di relazionarmi creativamente e tecnicamente con esso, per adesso sono a mio agio con i mezzi che hai elencato.

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R. Sono un “devoto alla Bellezza”, per citare Antonio Presti. Saper vedere ed essere capaci di mostrare la bellezza là dove apparentemente sembra assente, è un compito di conoscenza e una sfida, credo, che tutti noi dovremmo affrontare, io per primo, e questo non può non riflettersi nella mia visione estetica.

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6bis. Si vedono raramente decadenza o bruttezza o textures che non sono evidentemente belle nella tua arte finora - se concordi potresti spiegarne il motivo e se ritieni altrimenti potresti commentare a riguardo?

7. Spesso nel tuo contesto di immagine disegnata, il corpo umano non appare suggerendo la nozione che il tuo disegno sia destinato a svolgere un compito particolare nella tua produzione artistica : è così e perchè?

R. Nei miei disegni il corpo è presente come gesto che produce il segno, così come sono presenti, pensiero, intuizione, casualità e controllo. L’atto del disegnare è una necessità che mi conduce spesso in stati di contemplazione e di percezione profonda ed è (e in diversa misura anche con gli altri mezzi che utilizzo) come se creassi mondi, non faccio altro che far si che essi si manifestino sulla pagina, come il collasso della forma d’onda che diviene particella, atomo, materia, vita, emettendo energia.

7bis. Nel tuo percorso artistico vi è stata un’apparente interruzione considerevole: potresti parlare di quale sia -se vi fosse- la differenza principale tra il primo periodo di produzione artistica e l'attuale periodo?

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R. Sentivo che qualcosa mancava al mio lavoro, e così per otto anni sono andato alla ricerca, lontano da mostre, gallerie e dal fare. Mi sono fiondato verso l’esplorazione di me stesso, ho fatto esperienze con sciamani, geomanti e maestri spirituali, e man mano che procedevo mi accorgevo come queste esperienze avessero fondamenti nel mondo reale dell’immaginazione, erano come performance, potevi in qualche modo modellare le tue esperienze e sentire dentro profondamente e nel tuo corpo quanto potessero essere reali. Ora, osservando il mio lavoro con il necessario distacco ci vedo una continuità, una sua evoluzione, ora conosco e riconosco l’importanza dell’invisibile del trascendente nel mio lavoro. Era quello che cercavo.

Salvatore Calì nasce a metà del mese delle rose in Sicilia, alle pendici dell’Etna nel 1966.

Ha studiato infatti per diventare un fisico teorico ma si è ritrovato da autodidatta a praticare il fare dell’arte, incontrando successivamente la via mistica, nell’arte del conoscere se stessi, ampliandola con lo studio e l’ascolto della invisibili parole della Natura (Geomanzia).

Il suo lavoro si presenta in modo multimediale: installazioni, foto, video, disegno e performance sono i linguaggi che utilizza per raccontarci del suo profondo amore per la Terra.

I suoi lavori sono costanti tentativi di dialogo con la coscienza della Terra e con la coscienza collettiva dell’uomo contemporaneo, nel tentativo di suggerire, a quest’ultimo, un costante e profondo riavvicinamento alla Natura, in questo senso considera il suo lavoro d’arte come una forma di scultura sociale, dove l’opera partecipata a più livelli diviene la possibilità di un nuovo modo di essere cittadini della Terra.

Ha partecipato a diverse mostre e progetti internazionali, e ha ripreso il suo fare dell’arte da due anni dopo ben sette anni di riflessione.

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Attualmente vive e lavora a Canino (Vt), costantemente a contatto con la Natura.

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fragmented ripples Page

daphne cazalet

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daphne cazalet, 2008,pages from an autobiography 77 pieces (each piece 80cm x 33cm)

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daphne cazalet 2008 sari scrolls - installation

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daphne cazalet, 2008 -detail from sari scrolls

daphne cazalet - detail from women's ground (complete work 181cm x 275cm, 77 pieces)

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page 29: daphne cazalet - detail from women's ground (8 sheets, each 25cm x 24cm)

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daphne cazalet, 2008 - detail from sari scrolls

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detail from women's ground (single sheet 25cm x 24cm

artist statement daphne cazalet water over skin

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water flows, encircles washes and renews (my skin) retrieves an understanding memories from within (my senses) whirlpools unrestrained unrestricted and entwine (my mind) rushing up against the shoreline maintain a silent rhythm beating skins of time of hands and face and feet in ceremonial washing of pain and shame and violence overwhelming sounds of drumming demand relief (my tears and laughter) in need to celebrate the colour of my skin

The poem provides a metaphor for the outward and inward struggle expressed through my work. My practice has involved an intense exploration of the memory of sensation and history, deeply embedded in issues of self and identity. I see myself fragmented, washing myself. The patterns I create are reflected in water then reflected back. I see my skin clearly and the patterning of lines spills away, around the next border into another space, another country. I am left with my skin and my colour. I was borrn in India to Anglo-Indian parents. Later as a child we migrated as a family to Britain. As a woman on my own in 1982 I migrated to Australia enabling me to develop an absorbing critical analysis on my individuality, identity, culture and creativity.

The key themes that I relate to the transformation of identity, are shame, hybridity, race and gender in relation to diaspora and cultural identity. In my work I have visually explored the connection between country and hybridity in the context of Indian diaspora. The main thrust of my work is to express a postcolonial exploration of culture and identity in relation to mixed-race and colour. My experience as a woman of ‘Anglo-Indian’ descent provides a catalyst for the work.

The use of paper and its connection with my part Indian cultural background has become the compelling medium along with methods involving screenprinting. I make use of computer technology for digital manipulation of varied appropriated imagery and text, sought from Indian art and personal stories. The resulting images are used in several series of works on paper. I also use personal, imagined layered patterns of line, reminiscent of Indian textile design. The installation WallPaperGrid, explores an emotional domestic, gendered space with appropriated historical imagery, family photomontage and text. SariScrolls, a vertically hanging structure of long scrolls of Japanese hosho and Chinese rice/skin paper, suggests questions of cultural dress and new spaces without borders relating to hybridity, diaspora and belonging, including a 'made-up' written language resembling Hindustani script.

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The artwork expresses a visual interrogation of my trans-cultural identity - Indian and British. It involves an ongoing journey through which I have encountered the complexities of self-discovery and identity in a postcolonial era.

landscape vibrating I produce with my thoughts of not knowing the unknown a feeling, subliminal slips into place overrides the whole pattern stamped without fear where the inside is shaped on anonymous white coloured by inks overwhelming ideas in intimate space of roundness immense the comings and goings of childhood in self excursions galore to Indian bazaars floating in gold, rich textiles abound dilapidated signs from doorways hang down crumbling walls with dry mud hide the dark caves of Marabar -

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offering images of wisdom divine unearthing their beauty through colours intense craving the silence, transcending rich thresholds of goddesses’ lives divided interstices, circles and shape revealing a sense of our shame and our loss of inheritance displaced creating the stories, the myths and the lies only to find ‘the poetics of space’.

water over skin ii3 sarah scott Daphne Cazalet has worked variously as an artist, actor, writer and community arts worker. This multidisciplinary background has enriched her studio based investigation of her experiences as an “Anglo Indian woman” who was exposed to the impacts of colonization, diaspora and dislocation. Water Over Skin II – the basis is the final exhibition that marks the end of her doctoral candidature at Charles Darwin University *.

As her biography explains, Daphne’s long-term residence in Australia away from India and Britain provided her with a space – similar to Homi Bhabba’s “third space” - in which she was able to undertake this “interrogation of self” involving an exploration of gender, race, history, identity, memory and language.

The SariScroll installation and poem Water over Skin (printed in the catalogue) deftly weave together fine arts, autobiography, poetry and critical theory, and mark the culmination of her Doctoral research. The title Water over Skin hints at the racial prejudice Daphne encountered after leaving India, crossing the Indian Ocean, and arriving upon the shores of Great Britain.

Following India’s partition in 1947, her Anglo- Indian family was forced to fl ee violence and reprisal. The artist has described how “Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and others who had once lived together in towns and villages were driven from their homes. Eleven million people were made homeless. A million people died in violent religious riots.”

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Fragmented Ripples is based on Water Over Skin, the complete installation Sarah Scott refers to in this article, already published in 2008.

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This installation is a visual poem, building up layer upon layer of fragments, memories, meanings and metaphors. The rolls of paper overlaid with silkscreened images or softly sponged blue paint variously suggest long lengths of printed, patterned sari cloths, skin, rolls of fi lm, wallpaper and rivers. Their rich patterning evokes both the intricacy of Indian cloth and hennaed hands – and the claustrophobia of wallpapered English bedrooms.

Flicks of red paint suggest blood and violence.

They vividly communicate the frustrations that the teenage Daphne felt, stranded between her mother’s demands and the pressures to assimilate to an “English” way of life – or, as Daphne describes it, “between the exotic burden of my mixed race, my gender and the cultural tradition of Indian femaleness.” Alternatively these paint flicks could suggest the seeds of the diaspora hunting for new life.

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Unfortunately, as Daphne vividly describes in one of her catalogues’ autobiography, England in the 1950s, “the mythical mother country” was not the “ideal” she and her family had imagined. It was grey, cold and bleak. Children asked her if she lived in a wigwam, and her needlework teacher told her to wash her hands.

The title Water over Skin evokes these racial taunts. But Daphne’s poem also suggests the powers of water to transform. It conjures up images of Hindu cleansing rituals in the river Ganges, where the women wash and renew themselves in faith. Water and rivers are a metaphor of life signifying “the endless journey of the diasporic self” and the potential for the questing, energetic spirit to take unexpected courses.

Amongst the intricacy of the patterning are sections of Hindustani writing but surface appearances deceive. This is actually the artist’s own imagined language. It is a partly-remembered script recalled from the year that Daphne spent learning Hindustani – “the language to talk to Ayahs.” Her use of this imagined language raises questions about how our identity is constructed through language but it also poses fascinating questions concerning the ‘reading’ of identity. It is only those inside the culture who recognise the subtle differences between this language and Hindustani. This “in between” language mimics the subtle readings of skin colour within India – skin that is simply assumed as “other” beyond the continent.

The installation WallPaperGrid features faded sepia photos and shadowy black photographs of Daphne’s mother, grandmother, aunts, brothers and sister. They suggest pieces of a damaged silent fi lm – with sections missing. These photographs movingly convey Daphne’s experience of loss caused by cultural dislocation, but they also reveal how we all construct a narrative from our own lives – from shadowy memories and fragments that shift and change over time.

These “faded” images, also bring to mind the under-represented, “unrecorded” history of women.

Photographs of Daphne’s mother and grandmother speak of generations of female history and knowledge. So too do the references to rich cloths – the limited space into which women’s creative spirit was channeled and subsequently undervalued within a patriarchal society.

Similarly, the allusions to wallpaper within the installation suggest “a woman’s domain”, the private, domestic, restricted and largely unrecognised creative space open to women.

Water Over Skin evokes both the physical space of the artist’s own studio and the process of creating the artwork within it. The subtle inclusion of a mind map with the heavily circled word: HYBRIDITY provides a key to reading Water Over Skin and gives a clue to the creative seeds that germinated into this exhibition.

Prior showings of Water Over Skin in Darwin involved celebratory gatherings organised by Daphne. She successfully brought together a diverse group of people who both interacted with and became active participants within the work – sometimes sharing their own stories with each other. Daphne’s generous communication of her own experiences through her work provides an environment in which others may also feel empowered to recall, speak about and face their own experiences of racism, shame, sexism and abuse.

By overturning assumptions, by transforming the private feminine space into a public one in which we can gather, share our stories and thereby change, by turning a racial slur into positive statement, Daphne’s work creates an environment that ultimately offers the possibility of change and hope.

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Dr. Sarah Scott is a Lecturer in Art History and Theory at Charles Darwin University, Australia

Nata in India, educata in India e Gran Bretagna, Daphne Cazalet ha studiato teatro a Londra negli anni sessanta, poi ha lavorato come attrice a Bristol.

Nel 1982 è emigrata in Australia dove ha continuato il lavoro teatrale e, contemporaneamente, ha iniziato diversi progetti di scrittura e performance, in collaborazione con donne e giovani immigrati di diverse nazionalità, sponsorizzati dal Consiglio Nazionale Australiano e da Amministrazioni regionali.

Nel Queensland, nel 1992, ha lavorato come attrice in ruoli pricipali con la Tropic Sun Theatre Company, di Townsville, diretta da Jean-Pierre Voos. Più tardi, a Darwin, ha presentato il one-woman show “The Spider Witch” di John du Feu, sul tema delle donne emigrate, per il Darwin Fringe Festival, poi l'opera “The Girl from Elsewhere” per la Darwin Theatre Company.

Ha cominciato ad occuparsi di arte visiva nel 1998, dopo aver partecipato, in qualità di artista, ai vari Consigli Nazionali e Regionali per la pianificazione artistica del Paese.

Nel 2002 si è laureata in Arti Visive: 1st Class Honours presso la James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland -AustraliaNel 2002 ha ricevuto il Premio artistico “JCU Harry Hopkins”. Nel 2010 ha pubblicato, in seguito alla sua tesi, 'Water Over Skin: A Postcolonial Analysis Of The Transformation Of Cultural Identity' (Lambert Academic Publications, Germany).

Ancora oggi dipinge e le sue opere artistiche sono state vendute a collezionisti pubblici e privati in Australia, Gran Bretagna, Olanda, Svizzera e Germania.

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E' tornata a vivere in Europa nel 2009 e risiede a Castringnano de' Greci, in provincia di Lecce, in Puglia.

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mahony kiely

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aftermath

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mahony kiely, 2010, community ( wire, wood)

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page 42 : mahony kiely, a madonna ( installation)

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mahony kiely, ashen ( wood, fire ash and wire)

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mahony kiely, just resting 1, soil, and and wire

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mahony kiely, a world

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mahony kiely, women in an aftermath installation

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mahony kiely, a home ( rough fired ceramic)

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mahony kiely, homes

aftermath – reflections of an artist mahony kiely Responding to landscape, I work with collected materials and the stories hidden within; with things lost and found. The resultant work is shaped by the earth itself, as am I. As a resident of the wide brown land, landscape is a powerful cultural force; my identity is shaped by it so this exhibition is both a celebration of survival and a remembering of people and places lost.

I lived in outback Central Australia for 12 years, and am influenced by Indigenous culture and the sand paintings of that area.

So I scratch images into the earth, venting, and cast these as plaster relief. The image reveals itself in the act of drawing in the sand, trapped, as the plaster solidifies. My dance background leads me to explore body language, but the final form is dictated by the material itself. Some soil is coarse, some fine. Some will bear the marks of my touch and some will not. Working blindly and led by impulse, I notice that I am responding to my experience of the firestorms on the fringes of Melbourne, Australia in 2009.

Figurines reflect those around me. Ash is sculpted and the figures form themselves. Some inhabit an internal landscape of shadows, inescapable. Others, drawn from my imaginings, rest in vessels made of the earth to which they have returned, their final moments buried in the materials from which they were made.

Miniature paintings depict a landscape in the aftermath of fire; a tree set against a red sky; a forest, reduced. Mounted on domestic fence palings, these images are at times nailed down, crucified, or trapped on a bed of nails. They are painted with sawdust from trees felled after the fire, topsoil washed from the forest floor, ash, sand and red ochre. The works reflect on the materials that form them and the landscapes within which they were formed.

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I’m told of a woman who threw her children in a wombat hole and covered them with her body as fire roared overhead. Of a couple trying to leave, but unable to see even a metre in front of them, panicking, until their son reminded them via a mobile phone call, that they knew the route so well they could drive it blind….

Within, around and alongside all, is my own journey, haunted by frustration, impotence and sorrow. After witnessing an event that changed lives, and the ongoing pain of others, it is possible to fall into dark places…

Foreign landscapes offered refuge and retreat but…

Without light, it is hard to find a way out.

Slowly, with pen and paper or ash and charcoal, in the dead of night, I noticed myself. Through cracks, the light crept in.

Against a backdrop carved by the struggles of others, I felt a pathway.

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The materials remember the blood red moon that hung in the smoke thickened sky for days afterwards. I remember flying ash, red hot winds, and the sting as radiant heat singed my skin ……. I have an interest in performance, personal stories and the way they find form in our lives and bodies. My body remembers the struggle to breathe as the sky darkened mid afternoon.

Others remember much more, and have told me...….stories of a kangaroo that guided lost residents from a burning house to cleared land nearby where they rested together, saved.

mahony kiely aftermath 2012 sandy caldow Philosopher George Santayana said, “Art is a delayed echo”. This is apparent in Australian artist Mahony Kiely’s exhibition that reflects upon her experiences of the February 2009 “Black Saturday” bushfires near Melbourne, Australia. The fires claimed 173 lives and were of a magnitude rarely seen. Temperatures that day had soared to 47 degrees Celsius and Kiely was working at a music festival in the vicinity of the fires. She was there when people were told of the death of loved ones and the loss of life and homes. At that moment all their lives were changed forever.

In 2011 Kiely retreated to Europe and was able to gain a sense of distance from the trauma of the bushfires and began making work for this exhibition. The results comprise an installation that is multi layered and suggestive of place and time, luck and chance, life and death, grief and transcendence. She combines drawing, sculpture, photography, assemblage and performance to tell her story.

Her work builds upon a strong tradition of Australian art that responds to landscape, as found in works by Nolan, Boyd, Drysdale and the Heidelberg School. Drysdale worked to include elements of “a felt life” in his paintings. He believed in the Australian country spirit being one of survival, whether it was against the odds of fire, drought and flood. There was a metaphysical otherness in his paintings and Kiely’s works also have this quality.

As an artist Kiely has spent many years working on projects that are theatre and performance based. Her works are often collaborative and involve the community. No doubt this has influenced her long held interest in collecting and interpreting personal stories and the way they find form in our lives and bodies. In this exhibition her works are a response to the fires, but also on a symbolic level, to nature and alchemy.

The bowls and curved figures were made from materials collected from the fire-ravaged areas. Kiely collected sawdust from the recycling of burnt fence posts and trees and rich topsoil that washed down from the mountains when it rained after the fires. Her bowls form resting places for those who did not survive. In the bowls, figures made of the same materials, reflect their imagined final moments. Their stories are embedded in the very materials from which they and their vessels are made.

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Her first works for the exhibition utilised earth and ash as mediums to work with. Through these and other found materials she began translating her experiences of the fires. Reflecting upon the technique used by termites native to central Australia, of building anthills from the red sand, Kiely built figures from the earth, and bound the earth together with a medium.

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She worked with available local materials, including found and recycled objects, responding to the landscape and it’s stories as expressed by the community and herself. Her work has a strong symbolic presence that draws the viewer in while also containing psychological, emotional and mythical levels of meaning. In some works, Kiely is influenced by a practice of traditional Australian Aboriginal people who ‘draw’ a story in the sand and then speak or sing the sacred song of the story.

Kiely draws stories of the aftermath of fire into the earth in a similar manner, and she then casts the images in plaster as basreliefs. These works are often coloured and shaped by the earth itself, and their surfaces are textured by the soil.

A group of figures incorporate ash from a fire pit and depict a family of survivors. Kiely says that for this family “there is no release from the images seared into their memories or the pain of their losses – only the task of rising each day and surviving again, to the end”. Kiely says, “A series of figurines reflect on the coping mechanisms used by survivors as seen (by me) in their body language three years on. Yet even as survivors, something within them, died that day. This is reflected in the medium - ashes to ashes”.

Kiely’s visual art work is influenced by her years of experience working on theatre and performance based works. Her dance backround leads her to explore body language and archetypal shapes when creating work. A series of small photographic images depicts her in a performance, but all we see is her shadow, leaning to one side, arms gesturing towards the sky. The shadowy dancer is in front of a large wall drawing of a burnt bush landscape. In a similar way Kiely choreographs the elements of the exhibition.

The making process became part of the narrative and revealed the interconnectedness between the past and present when Kiely made small models of houses from clay. While she was firing them in a friend’s wood stove she realised that through the process of making the work, she was recreating a view in miniature of the 2009 fires. Throughout the firing process she viewed the houses and the flames in the wood stove. A reality shift occurred when the small clay houses and the flames in the stove became monumental and signified the township of Kinglake and the fire that claimed 173 lives and razed the area. By accentuating the scale of her work, by reducing the size of the houses and the flames, Kiely had recreated and viewed the bushfire scene in miniature.

She does this in a number of works. In one series she depicts a forest in the aftermath of fire. Using sawdust from trees felled after the fires, lost topsoil from the forest floor, ash and red ochre, the tall trees and vast areas of land are reduced to postage stamp size paintings. Perhaps this is an attempt to control the impact? To reduce its’ devastation? Or is it to try to make it a viewable experience?

Sandy Caldow Sandy Caldow lives in Melbourne and is a Contributing Editor and Regional Correspondent for Asian Art News and World Sculpture News.

She is an artist and writer and is the Cultural Collection Coordinator at the City of Whittlesea, Melbourne.

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Kiely presents a synthesis of form and narrative through a vocabulary uniquely her own. The memory of the land and the fires are engraved in these works.

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Kiely explores the diverse materials used, the biological, ecological and cultural concepts, and the spatial engagement around and between the works. There are interconnections between time, place and materiality. She provides us with a way to view the trauma and grief associated with loss of life and homes and landscape that occurred as a result of the Black Saturday fires.

She translates the experience, shaping materials as if performing her own rituals, which by the sheer act of creation also represent pathways to recovery.

aftermath bronwyn lay After the fire an artist who lost her tongue stretched her blind hand down into the dust.

Impossible ashes and her burnt hand met to make substance from trauma. In the aftermath, after exposure, art and body fell together into a corporeal regeneration to re-cover each other.

Rupturing Nature. Flood, cyclone, storm, tsunami and bushfire are confrontations of an ‘Other’ that normally lie dormant under human mastery.

Without warning a bushfire can lick the world. It comes out of nowhere. It comes from ‘nature’ and during its heat human veins fill with hot ash.

Forms are dis-integrated as our borders, our outlines, our identities, and our stories fall away under an open sky. Without discrimination matter and flesh are equally reduced to debris.

The sudden ‘unnatural’ rupture of nature blasts our small faces and smashes through the retina of self and we, in-humans, are forced to a traumatic seeing - there is no mastery or language for this natural betrayal.

Those who face, witness, have their skin ripped off by being exposed to these natural ruptures – crumble and fall. This traumatic reduction into ashes is precisely where linguistics leaves us. Blind to our habitation, ‘nature’ reveals it is a reign we underestimate.

‘Nature’ can dissolve without compassion and leave us standing in charred paddocks baring full-bodied wounds.

The slow process of gathering clothes, gathering skin, and re-covering the flesh comes from reaching down, into the recesses of soil, dust, ash, mud, broken trees, smashed buildings, and bodies that have passed on. It comes from re-covering ourselves with the ashes of the ‘Other’. It comes from putting our hands into the matter that destroyed the world as we knew it.

This is the artists voice – the recovery in> spaces where meaning has been burnt blind. There is meaning, but not after this, and not for us, therefore we recover with form and substance.

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The aftermath ashes write sentences that we cannot critique. It is tragic. We thrash. We become mute – abandoned by alphabet. In the ruins, in the debris, there is no European reflection looking back at us from a cool narcissistic pond for all structure is melted beyond comprehension. The human face is lost and insignificant.

There is no ‘Other’ – and if there is it is everything and stronger than our faces - and so we are lost. This is when pre history collides violently with the present and the future – its force tipping everything into precarity – back to the irrelevancy and the fragility of ourselves.

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We stand naked as the impotent history that has been carefully marked and tattooed onto our skin, is fried away. The identities that we clothe ourselves melt in this kind of fire, and it becomes hard to look, to see, in the heat. All that we think we are gets ripped off in a scalding wind until flesh is red raw. Even those who lose nothing - but witness the burning of human artifices that help us function in the constructed world of appearances – can lose everything. Humanity and identity, our crutches and the basis of our sentences, reveal themselves as tinderbox hope when the self is washed away from something more powerful than the nation, the race, the sex, the gender, the binds, the love.

Some of us are left standing in charred paddocks baring full bodied wounds. There is no tangibility to the mourning. The loss is in-human. The human has been taken by the ‘Other’ which breaks already red raw flesh. There is no sense to the mourning for language has limits. If we love the human and non-human there is no word for this betrayal. ‘Where’ can we stand solid in the face of this that is new but was once everything? All that is solid has been made to debris.

Those who can stand after falling into the precarity of naked ecological life have a different gait. It is a knowledge that comes from the flesh, from the pre-historical body, the pre-ideological cells, the pre-identity skin, that feels, speaks and is not enthusiastic about the earth, but reverent because it knows ‘my’ body is miniscule in the multiple bodies that make up this orb of Us. This ‘us’ is more non-human than human. We are bigger than me and We can take me under.

I am Mahony’s cousin. We are linked by blood. After the fires I witnessed my blood suffer. It hurt. I heard her fall and stood by seeing her art in the dust. All air was fragile. She said she lost nothing but it was a lie. She lost her skin. A cover that carefully constructed for years was blown away by a lethal north wind that came without warning. But underneath her cover is where we loved. After the fire this was un-covered and her burnt hand reached out to speak to us through the art of ashes and dust.

This exhibition is the artists re-clothing - re-covering - onto raw flesh. In precariousness of self, Mahony found shelter in the fragility of ruins, the debris. This debris she touched and molded with her own hands is Us. This is Us outside time. Our past, present and future. Whether we know it or not - we are/will be naked life re-covering in the dust of ‘us’. We have many cousins – we just haven’t let ourselves precarious enough to hear/feel/see/taste/smell them who wait for us to re-connect.

The art of ashes invite us back, forward and into the here that we are.

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Bronwyn Lay writes, edits, and is the Director of the Australia Festival and other cultural events.

Her experience lies at the intersection of politics, ecology, the arts and philosophy.

Mahony Maia Kiely has worked throughout Australia and overseas in a variety of roles including; visual artist, creative producer, choreographer, and facilitator of community process.

In 1999 she toured Europe on an Australia Council grant, and worked in the UK as a fabricator on the infamous Notttinghill Parade in London, sculpted on a land/art project in the midlands and worked with Welfare State Theatre on the Ulverston Lantern parade and finale.

Trained at the Victorian College of the Arts (Master of Arts 2001 and Graduate Diploma 1997) she began making sculptures when living in Alice Springs, NT where she studied Creative and Applied Art at the Central Australian campus of NT University.

She is currently doing an artistic residency at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia where the works for AFTERMATH were developed.

In 2011, with collaborator Stefanie Robinson, she installed RESTING PLACES at Synergy Gallery, Northcote, Melbourne, and showed work on the Trans Siberian Railway in their POSTCARDS exhibition. Works on the same theme were exhibited at the Australia Festival, Vesancy, France, in September 2010.

Mahony is currently employed by the City of Whittlesea where she initiates and manages community development programs using art as a tool for community building. In this role she creatively produces community and art events, conducts community consultations and engages in collaborative processes to collectively design images to express community aspirations and raise the profile of issues, she project manages an annual community exhibition and co-ordinates an Artist in Residence Program.

From 2004-6 she worked with the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and with Melbourne based ‘Burning Sensations’ from 1996-2004 (Artistic Director until 2001).

From 1989-2002 she worked as a choreographer and fabricator with ritual theatre company, Neil Cameron Productions.

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Other freelance work has included teaching cross-artform performance making at a tertiary level utilising multi-media and other visual tools, encouraging students to find visual and theatrical form for stories.

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anita matell

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proof of trace of becoming

anita matell, 2011, butterfly dream ( amalfi paper, pastel, crystal paper)

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page 56&57: anita matell, 2011, chrysalis evolution, ( kakemono paper, fibres, sewn on tarlatan )

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anita matel, 2011, fossils of pain ( paper, pen, pastels)

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page 60 : anita matell, 2011, chrysalides (15cm) (plaster, gesso, gauze) page 61: anita matell, 2011, vsions, amalfi paper, pastels)

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anita matell, (2011) turning back ( amalfi paper, gouache, gauze)

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62 page 63: anita matell 2011, empty shells, drawings and objects

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anita matell, 2011 desired being, gauze

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prove di tracce del divenire anita matell

proof of trace of becoming

cerco di ricordarmi ri-cordare | la membrana traslucente...leggera trsparenza...aria ma non trapelante

anita matell

il tempo dell’intermezzo dell’attesa, il tempo prima dell’arrivo, il tempo dopo l’arrivo un desiderio di arrivare, il desiderio di attendere il desiderio di essere il desiderio dell’essere attendere-vivere-lasciare-attendere-venire-viverediventare-partire-attendere- vivere attendere-vivere-lasciare-attendere-venire-viverediventare-partire-attendere- vivere- partireaspettare-vivere- lasciare desiderio di appartenere << alcun istante finito- come altrimenti si potrebbe rimanere senza tempo nell’intermezzo?>>

translucent …light transparency …air but not transpersable elastic allowing movements of tides coming in going out the back and forth the breath(ing) expire inhale re member the time of the other side the waiting before becoming

the time in-between the time the time after the being

remember …i try to rememeber shades of feelings suggestions of thoughts a re-becoming in stillness in no movement no ending instants how could one otherwise stand the timeless in between ? the time in-between the waiting

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crescenti e discendenti partano e poi ritornino il respiro espirare, inspirare ricordare il tempo dall’altro lato il tempo dell’intermezzo l’attesa il tempo prima del divenire il tempo dopo l’essere ricordare... cerco di ricordare ombre del sentire suggerimenti di pensiero un ridivenire nell’immobilita’ nel non-movimento istanti interminabili come altrimenti si potrebbe rimanere senza tempo nell’intermezzo?

re – member the membrane

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fluttuante lascia che le maree

i try to remember

the time before be coming the time after the being a desire to come the desire to wait the desire of being the desire of the being waiting – living – leaving – waiting – coming – living – becoming – leaving – waiting – living – waiting-living-leaving-waiting-coming-living-becoming-leaving-waiting-living-leaving-waiting-living-leaving longing of belonging

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« no ending instants … how could one otherwise stand the timeless in between ? »

becomings jane creenaune The purpose of memory, according to Riceour, is to remember le souvenir, that is, the “thing” or object brought to mind as a manifestation of a past experience.

As suggested in her opening text that is as much a road-map with which to navigate the collection of works as it is the artist's statement, Matell grounds her longing to remember suspended states of her own identity through the embodiment of the objects that she creates.

The word “remember” is associated with ideas concerned with the retention and retrieval of a past experience. In its Latin roots, memor means to be mindful of something. Membrum literally means a limb, but refers to memory and the act of remembering as a returning of something to the mind with the effect of rejoining aspects “… or limbs of a body of knowledge.

These objects that Matell makes command a mindfulness of her vigorous efforts in bringing together a very personal body of knowledge. Capturing memory is notoriously elusive though and is it no less the case in Matell's object-oriented manifestations of hovering between a state of being and not being.

French auteur Agnes Varda develops a metaphor of place to express identity. She offers that “… if you opened people up you would find landscapes. If you opened me up, you would find beaches”.

Matell's expressions of self are imbued in a watery suspension of time and place. Through the ephemeral quality of the media she choses, the objects appear to drift in the calm, quite sea of evocations of just out of reach memories Thin, gauzy veils of tarlatan and gouache cajole and protect the fragility of what it is that Matell remembers. Too tightly swaddled, saccharine-faced babies, empty cocoon whose physical beauty belies a sadder narrative. They lure us in to gaze on their egg-shell like, diminutive, creamy softness of folds and shadows.

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Jane Creenaune is an Australian artist, sculptor and painter, who has been awarded international residencies and recognition, has a long standing academic and personal interest in identity and migration.

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One suspects that these objects are powerful vehicles for summonsing and placating Mattel’s desires. Importantly too, through her creative works, she engages us, the viewer, in an exchange of narratives and memories about our own Identities.

anita matell is born in uppsala, sweden. she has studied art and classical ballet in stockholm and new york, and later worked mainly in paris as a performing artist, specializing in baroque dance. Has travelled widely japan being a significant context to renegotiate her art practice. anita is a sculptor, drawer and doll maker ( as she likes to say she is mother of a son and four daughters and some 500 dolls...). matell lives in france and has an ongoing creative collaboration with various artists from illustrators to designers authoring with then a series of special publications and objects d'art.

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she is currently developing further the body of work, proof of traces of becoming, which will also be the object of a solo exhibition in 2013.

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contatti | contacts:

artisti | artists salvatore calÄş

http://salvatorcali.blogspot.it/

daphne cazalet

http://schemes-art.com

mahony kiely anita matell

http://www.artegiro.com/

galleria | gallery artegiro contemporary art:

http://www.artegiro.com/

artegirofineart@gmail.com

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renata summo-oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;connnell

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curator | curator:

indice | index: introduzione | introduction

3-6

renata summo-o’ connell timeless | senza tempo : in equilibrio tra azione e effetto timeless | senza tempo: between action and its effect

3-4 5–6

salvatore calĺ

8 – 22

opere | works

9 - 15

artist statement

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marco trulli l’esplorazione ( e l’esplosione) dell’invisibile

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renata summo-o’connell intervista salvatore calĺ

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salvatore calĺ note biografiche

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fragmented ripples

24 – 37

opera | works

25 - 31

artist statement

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sarah scott water over skin ii

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bio

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daphne cazalet

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shapeshifters

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opere | works

40 - 46

mahony kiely aftermath- reflections of an artist

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sandy caldow aftermath 2012

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bronwyn lay aftermath

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bio

52

anita matell becoming

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opere | works

55 - 63

anita matell proof of trace of becoming

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jane creenaune becomings

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Bio

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contacts

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aftermath

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mahony kiely

timeless | senza tempo catalogue of works

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2012 Š artegiro

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