CAROLINE KHA: The Tourist by dalla Rosa Gallery

CAROLINE KHA: THE TOURIST

dalla Rosa Gallery 07 - 29.06.2013

dalla Rosa Gallery | 121 Clerkenwell Road | London EC1R 5BY | dallarosagallery.com

Caroline Kha, Wish You Were Here (2013), Django Fantago postcard series, typewriter and graphite on card

CAROLINE KHA: THE TOURIST 7 – 29 June 2013 To collect photographs is to collect the world. (Susan Sontag) dalla Rosa is proud to present The Tourist, Caroline Kha’s second solo show at the gallery. The new body of work plays on the construction of place through found images, tokens, maps, postcards and travel guides. The show is an invitation to travel and spend time looking at things familiar in a new context. Kha has produced paintings, collages, drawings, and text-based works with the aim to discover and re-discover familiar locations through varied documentation. The work is about creating compositions that encourage a more sustained viewing or engagement with otherwise ordinary images and objects such as landscape pictures, postcards, rocks and stamps. I prefer working in series and I’m interested in exploring reproductions, small modulations and permutations of form. Collections of these images can lead to a construction of a sense of place or of the object depicted. The new graphite drawings are based on small rocks I’ve collected as tokens during my own travels to tourist destinations like Saqqara in Egypt. In contrast, the silverpoint drawings depict a series of volcanic islands which are difficult to access due to strong currents and high cliffs. These drawings concentrate on exploring mass and surface. (Caroline Kha, 2013) Wish you were here is a series of Django Fontina postcards, a type of card written and posted to strangers as a means of distributing poetry. The typed poems reconfigure text from old postcards, mostly dating from the 1970s, that were sent from popular tourist destinations around Britain. The postcards are in pairs, each poem accompanied by a continuous-line drawing of the map identifying the location described. The book installation Passages is a collective travel anthology surveying memories, personal experiences and travel publications. Participants were asked to lend a travel guide and identify key locations they found memorable. Some books in the collection are well travelled and used; having been faithful travel companions in places like India, Colombia, Thailand and Russia. Other books remain pristine, silent reminders of dream locations still to explore.

Caroline Kha was born in Australia and studied Fine Art and Science before moving to London and starting a one-year residency at the Florence Trust in 2009. Her work has been exhibited in Sydney, Tokyo, and London, in 2010 dalla Rosa presented her first solo show in Britain, A Spot of Time. For the second year in a row Kha has been selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (10 June â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 18 August). For further information contact hello@dallarosagallery.com All installation photos by Philip John Jones.

Caroline Kha, Wish You Were Here (2013), Django Fantago postcard series, typewriter and graphite on card (detail)

Caroline Kha, Mountain Ranges (2013), oil on canvas, installation view at dalla Rosa Gallery

Caroline Kha, title (year) , medium, dimensions, copyright

Caroline Kha, Talismans: St. Sebastian, Spain, view A, B, C (2013), graphite on paper

Caroline Kha, 29029 ft (2013), graphite on paper

Caroline Kha, Passages: Travel Anthology (2013), installation of books, paper, card (detail)

CAROLINE KHA Solo Exhibitions 2013 The Tourist, dalla Rosa Gallery, London (upcoming) 2010 A Spot of Time, dalla Rosa Gallery, London 2008 Untied Project, Michael Gray Fine Art, Sydney 2005 Waiting, James Harvey Gallery, Sydney 2003 Transitions, Meriden School, Sydney Selected Group Exhibitions 2013 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London 2012 Cross Section /01, dalla Rosa Gallery, London 2012 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London 2012 London Art Fair, Art Projects - dalla Rosa Gallery, London 2011 London Art Fair, Art Projects - Florence Trust, London 2010 Summer Exhibition, Florence Trust, St Saviours, London 2010 Winter Open Studios, Florence Trust, St Saviours, London 2009 Oxfam Footprints, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney 2009 Bushwhacked! The 3rd Annual Google Exhibition, Hardware Gallery, Sydney 2009 Even a Stopped Clock Tells the Right Time Twice a Day, Hardware Gallery, Sydney 2009 Stargazing, Vanishing Point Gallery and Hardware Gallery, Sydney 2008 Insite, Vaucluse House, Sydney 2007 Untitled, Milk Factory Gallery, Bowral, Sydney 2006 Red Magic, Love Original Project, Gallery LELE, Tokyo 2006 20 Minutes of Perfect Happiness, ANCA Gallery, Canberra 2005 Sirens: 12 Women Artists, Global Gallery, Sydney 2005 Infusion, Cell Block Gallery, National Art School, Sydney 2004 Spectrum, Old Parliament House, Spectrum2004, Sydney 2002 On the Edge, Stairwell Gallery, NAS, Sydney 2002 Oil and Coil, Cell Block Gallery, NAS, Sydney 2001 One Week in the City, Government House, Sydney 2000 Walsh Bay, Cell Block Gallery, NAS, Sydney 1998 Murals, University of New South Wales, Sydney Awards 2008 Finalist, Paddington Art Prize: Landscape, Sydney 2002 Finalist, Strathfield Eco Art Prize, Sydney 1998 1st Prize, Michelangelo Competition, University of New South Wales Residencies 2010 Florence Trust Residency, St Saviours, London 2003 Artist in Residence Studio, Meriden School, Sydney Education 2009 Bachelor of Teaching, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2002 Bachelor of Fine Arts, National Art School, Sydney 2000 Bachelor of Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney

Caroline Kha, La Femme (2013), oil on canvas