good grief, danish quapoor

good grief, danish quapoor

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Publisher

Pinnacles Gallery

Townsville City Council

PO Box 1268

Townsville City, Queensland, 4810 galleries@townsville.qld.gov.au

©Galleries, Townsville City Council, and respective artists and authors, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-949461-62-9

Published on the occasion of good grief, danish quapoor

Artist

Danish Quapoor

Publication and Design Development

Townsville City Council

Contributing Authors

Holly Arden

Danish Quapoor Dr. Rhiannan Johnson

Artwork documentation

Amanda Galea

Cover image:

Danish Quapoor, pit of despair, 2023

Hand-coiled and stitched baling twine on gessoprimed timber frame, 9.5 x 30.5 x 30.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Pinnacles Gallery

Riverway Arts Centre

20 Village Boulevard, Thuringowa Central QLD 4817

Mon–Fri: 9am–5pm Sat: 9am–3pm Sun: 9am–1pm

Galleries full team listing

Holly Arden Galleries Director

Jo Lankester Senior Exhibitions and Collections Officer

Veerle Janssens Collection Management Officer

Michael Favot Exhibitions Officer

Zoe Seitis Exhibitions Assistant

Leo Valero Protocol and Events Officer

Chloe Lausen Curatorial Assistant

Rachel Cunningham Senior Education and Programs Officer

Jonathan Brown Education and Programs Officer

Ashleigh Peters Education and Programs Officer

Tanya Tanner Senior Public Art Officer

Rhiannon Mitchard Public Art Officer

Maddie Bleakley Customer Service Officer

Crysania Gadd Customer Service Officer

Saraima Batt Customer Service Officer

Katya Venter Gallery Assistant

Anja Bremermann Gallery Assistant

Deanna Nash Team Leader Business Support

Sue Drummond Business Support Officer

Christine Teunon Business Support Officer

Emma Hanson Business Support Officer

Rachael Devescovi Business Support Officer

(07) 4727 9011

galleries@townsville.qld.gov.au

whatson.townsville.qld.gov.au

Townsville City Galleries

TownsvilleCityGalleries

Acknowledgement of Country

Townsville City Council and Danish Quapoor acknowledge the Wulgurukaba of Gurambilbarra and Yunbenun, Bindal, Gugu Badhun and Nywaigi as the Traditional Owners of this land. We pay our respects to their cultures, their ancestors and their Elders, past, present, and all future generations.

Danish Quapoor

a mountain between us, 2021-2023

Acrylic, baling twine and paint pen on stretched paper

81.5 x 102cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, salubrious, 2022

Hand-pierced porcelain paperclay, body stain and clear gloss glaze 11.5 x 12.5 x 11cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

foreword

by Danish Quapoor

good grief is the largest and most significant solo exhibition of my career so far. It is also my most personal interrogation of identity and relationships. Building and sharing this body of work has been a long process of defragmentation, catharsis, and bittersweet release. It has been a labour of love, but a labour, nonetheless.

The primary catalysts for this exhibition were my father’s unexpected death, and the varied experiences of coming out to my immediate family members as bisexual. The grief and grievances from those experiences became somewhat intertwined in my mind.

These personal traumas, while uniquely my own, unfortunately don’t exist in isolation. While writing this text, for instance, I learned that a friend’s grandparents no longer talk to him because of his sexuality. Being bisexual still seems underrepresented and mis-represented, particularly in regional Australia. Binary gender roles also seem too often enforced, subliminally and otherwise. And of course, death and grief are an inescapable reality for everyone, even though the circumstances vary.

I give this preface not to be woeful, or to limit my work to these concerns, but to provide a broad context for the starting point for this body of work. Processing my grief, relationships and memories led to new artistic developments, and in small ways, to subverting some of the norms of conservatism and heteronormativity that were inherent to those traumas in the first place. (I am also eager to share my story in the hope that it provides another perspective for readers and audiences processing grief and grievances of their own).

good grief, like much of my work, abstracts and obfuscates the personal to accentuate the positive. I aimed to embed a life-affirming levity in the works to alleviate some of the darker themes and notions of grief. I appreciate binaries and the shades of grey in between, so there is a lot of good amongst the grief, but a lot of underlying tension. Further, I enjoy wordplay, misdirection and humour, so things are not always as they seem. I have recontextualised phrases said to me, for instance, as purposeful titles and narratives; I have embedded memories and histories into specific iconography, although that imagery can be interpreted in multiple ways.

I am also interested in concepts and experiences beyond my own. I draw on the lived experiences of friends and strangers, and on observations more broadly. I often feel as if my role as an artist is to hold all the tendrils of thought, process, material, experience and awareness together, and to forge them into something new. Like the repetitive processes I employ, it is about building up and layering the minute details into complex, stylised systems.

The works in this exhibition engage with diverse concepts including mortality, loss, memorialisation, corporeality, memory, frustration, allergies, expectations, gender roles and sexuality. I hope there is enough ambiguity and universality to appeal and disquiet in equal measures, and I hope that good grief resonates with you.

Danish Quapoor, 2024

Danish Quapoor

Maybe i (Maybe that’s why dad had to get taken out) 2023-2024

Glass with hand-coiled and stitched baling twine and acrylic on Linden wood

15 x 7.7 x 7.7cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, tumour target [detail], 2022-2023 Hand-coiled and stitched baling twine, 59.5 x 60cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

good grief

by Dr. Rhiannan Johnson

Danish Quapoor’s new exhibition good grief is a series of nostalgic visual paradoxes which serve to awaken curiosity, reveal narratives of memory, and engage with human experience broadly. Quapoor’s work invites the viewer into an uncanny world that is simultaneously familiar and unsettling. This alludes to a tension or exasperation which is just bubbling under the surface, a darkness that is not visually overt, but seems vaguely present nonetheless.

The artist’s visual narration is complemented by written language, articulated through the exhibition and artwork titles. These reveal Quapoor’s observational sensitivity, dry humour, and sharp wit. The exhibition title good grief is a partial nod to Charles Schulz’s Peanuts cartoon, which has been influential to the artist since childhood, and to the precocious, resigned, and open-ended language and humour frequently employed throughout it. This phrase can be regarded as an exclamation of mild exasperation, or as seemingly contradictory textual descriptors. The potential for double meanings realised through word play are rife throughout this exhibition, from Leviathan (A Fine Lion Between Pleasure and Pain) to Urn’t you glad it’s not that fragile. This playful use of language is dispersed between increasingly overt and reflective statements including a mountain between us, monolith to me, and live to see my children’s children (methusela). These slowly reveal fragments of a personal narrative, and imbue the works with a sense of

longing, resilience, and sorrow. This is intermittently at odds with the playful, flat illustrative style enacted through some of the works, aiding the overall tension manifested in this exhibition.

Though eluding specificity, Quapoor’s complex and nuanced visual narration is underpinned by a deep exploration of self. Reaching a peak in 2020, the artist found himself immersed in a heightened state of flux which has permeated his personal and collective identity. While not overt, the artist grapples with themes of memory, loss, sexuality, gender roles, and regionality. Often relying on symbolism and coded visual iconography, Quapoor can obfuscate personal details and simultaneously open himself to the unmitigated interrogation of the self through the processing of experiences, relationships, and ideologies. Through deliberate elusiveness, the artist enables and encourages viewers to engage in similar acts of reflective and self-reflective storytelling. Viewers can identify with various anthropomorphic and indistinct forms and figures, and may regard them as simultaneously representative of the artist’s story and markers of their own experiences and existence. As such, the works elicit consideration and exploration, while remaining visually accessible to a broad audience.

Though his material practice spans across many applications, including painting, illustration, ceramics, textiles, and animation, Quapoor

Danish Quapoor, Urn’t you glad it’s not that fragile, 2021 Hand-coiled and stitched baling twine 20 x 14.5 x 14.5cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

frequently employs repetitive actions which manifest visually in the creative artefacts. From expansive stippled fields which form organic or circular shapes in his illustrations, to fine needle piercing in ceramic forms, to the meticulous coiling and stitching of baling twine, Quapoor’s work is heavily grounded in intensive processes. These manifest as reiterative, meditative acts which allow for deliberation and reflexive engagement with the act of artmaking and the resultant artefact. Such time timeconsuming practices, where one can almost revert to muscle memory to complete the physical tasks, enable the mind to wander. This leads the artist to occasionally shift intention or approach as the works take shape, and provides the space and time required for subconscious and intuitive ideas to develop and resolve. These repetitive, physical acts are reflected in Quapoor’s works across varied mediums and, often set against sparse visual fields or simple linework, lead viewers to similar space of contemplation.

Quapoor’s persistent melding of seemingly disparate materials and surfaces initiates a level of visual and conceptual tension both within individual works and across the exhibition. This is particularly evident in stubborn forces (sentinel i), 2022, which is an organic, amorphous sculptural form. An ostensibly personal and self-reflective work, stubborn forces positions the fatherson relationship as entwined, yet subject to a perpetual state of push and pull, fuelled by individual stubbornness. Shrouded in memories of time spent with his father on their farm, Quapoor explores material connectivity through his use of tightly coiled baling twine, which is juxtaposed here with the smooth, glazed, ceramic form. By exploring the apparent contrast between light and dark, smooth and rough, fragile and rigid, and heavy and lightweight, the artist gives form to both

interpersonal and universal dualities, such as those of moral concern. What is particularly interesting, and speaks intimately to the human condition, is the false starts in implied qualities. For example, the clay is lighter in colour, yet is the heavier form where the baling twine is comparatively weightless. Even so, the tightly constricted baling twine has a surprising strength, flexibility and rigidity, whereas the clay is more fragile and brittle. This leads the viewer to consider that things are not always as they seem, and even when they are, they can be something else simultaneously. The state of push and pull is ceaseless, fluid, and open for interpretation.

Engaging in exploratory practices over the course of more than sixteen years, Quapoor has developed a distinct visual language articulated through multi-disciplinary artefacts. His creative practice can be mapped across different phases, including dominant phases of ceramics and illustration, which emerge and resurge over time. good grief draws on these collective phases and deploys them as a cohesive, multimodal whole – an immersive experience which transforms the gallery space into an inviting yet peculiar world. While remaining an avid storyteller, Quapoor’s synthesis of two- and three-dimensional media enables him to elicit some degree of open-ended response. Through his use of a restrictive colour palette and ambiguous forms, a tension emerges between what is being presented or told and what is being coded or concealed. It is this duality that invites sustained exploration; that encourages viewers to return to the work repeatedly as if engaging in iterative discovery. Here, we can be led to accept a level of uncertainty as a necessary condition of being human. Where holistic resolution is eluded, there remains a rich landscape of beauty, pain, reflexivity, connection, grief, and perpetual discovery.

Danish Quapoor, stubborn forces (sentinel i), 2022 Hand-coiled and stitched baling twine on porcelain paperclay with clear gloss glaze 24.5 x 11.5 x 11.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

selected artworks

Danish Quapoor, hard work (yourself to death), 2023 Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper, 101.5 x 51cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, son-flower, 2021

Acrylic and paint pen on paper, 30 x 30cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, uphill battle, 2021-2023

Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper, 40.5 x 50.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, hair today, gone tomorrow (dysdocking), 2021-22 Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper, 50.5 x 40.5cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, murder(ed) bird, 2020-21 Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper, 51 x 41cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, ORPHIC EGG, 2020 Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper, 25.5 x 20.5cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, undocking, 2021

Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper 50.5 x 40.5cm

Photography: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor Leviathan (A Fine Lion Between Pleasure and Pain), 2020 Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper 40.5 x 50.5cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor like getting [redacted] and walking on green grass, 2023-2024 Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper 60 x 80.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor WHITEHEADS, 2021

Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper 40.5 x 30.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor LORATADINE, 2023-2024

Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper 25.5 x 30.5cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor two worlds, 2021-22

Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper 40.5 x 50.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish

Quapoor TUSKS, 2021

Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper 40.5 x 30.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor WELTS, 2021

Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper 40.5 x 30.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor nest egg, 2023

Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper with hand-coiled and stitched baling twine 33.5 x 27 x 2cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor renesting, 2022

Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper with hand-coiled and stitched baling twine 34.5 x 28 x 4.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor false dichotomy i, 2023

Acrylic on stretched paper with hand-coiled and stitched baling twine 60 x 83.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor false dichotomy ii, 2023

Stretched paper with hand-coiled and stitched baling twine, 32.5 x 46cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor live to see my children’s children (methusela), 2023 Acrylic, paint pen and hand-coiled and stitched baling twine on vinyl toddlerpillar 46 x 13 x 22.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, monolith to me [detail], 2022-2024 Blown glass, hand-pierced mid-fire black clay, clear gloss glaze and lustre 16.5 x 14 x 13.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, monolith to me, 2022-2024

Blown glass, hand-pierced mid-fire black clay, clear gloss glaze and lustre 16.5 x 14 x 13.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor crystal uskery, 2023 Acrylic and paint pen on stretched paper 82 x 83.5cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor

Maybe ii (Maybe you have to change everything about yourself), 2023-2024

Blown glass, hand-coiled and stitched baling twine and acrylic on Linden wood 19 x 10.5 x 10.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, things left unsaid (sentinel ii), 2023-2024 Hand-coiled and stitched baling twine, mid-fire black clay, clear gloss glaze and lustre 15 x 10.5 x 9.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, pit of despair, 2023 Hand-coiled and stitched baling twine on gesso-primed timber frame 9.5 x 30.5 x 30.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor the highest highs, the lowest lows

2023-2024

Blown glass with hand-coiled and stitched twine and baling twine 20.5 x 8 x 7.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor coming to a head, 2021-2022

Hand-coiled and stitched twine and baling twine 35 x 13 x 13cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor allsorts, 2023

Hand-coiled and stitched baling twine 31.5 x 31.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor, tumour target, 2022-2023 Hand-coiled and stitched baling twine, 59.5 x 60cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor

Hand-pierced porcelain paperclay, body stain and clear gloss glaze

Dimensions variable

Photographer: Amanda Galea

the apple and the tree, 2023

Danish Quapoor sorrow stone, 2023

Hand-pierced porcelain paperclay, body stain and clear gloss glaze 6.5 x 7.5 x 9cm Photographer: Amanda Galea

Hand-pierced porcelain paperclay, body stain and clear gloss glaze

Dimensions variable

Photographer: Amanda Galea

Danish Quapoor young and old, 2022-2023

Danish Quapoor but after all it is Still Life, 2022

Hand-pierced porcelain paperclay, body stain and clear gloss glaze

Dimensions variable upon installation

Photographer: Amanda Galea

acknowledgements

To my mum and my family, despite it all, and in tribute to my dad, Allan Qualischefski (18 September 1948 – 10 June 2020).

There are many incredible humans who have contributed to my artistic growth and to my work in good grief. For brevity, I will limit my written gratitude to those who have directly contributed as this exhibition has formed over the last few years. A heartfelt thank you to:

• My partner Noah, for your encouragement and patience with all the hours I have spent creating, thinking, dreaming and writing. I am excited to finally share one of my solo exhibitions with you.

• The Townsville City Galleries team, and particularly to Jo Lankester, Rachel Cunningham, Chloe Lausen and Michael Favot for your help and ongoing support, including through changes of gallery directors and exhibition dates. Thank you too, Holly Arden, for your enthusiasm since commencing in your role.

• Dr Rhi Johnson, for your eloquent and generous catalogue essay, and for your years of support, artistic collaboration, friendship and feedback.

• Joeli Eastell, likewise, for your years of support, artistic collaboration, friendship and feedback.

• Amanda Galea, for your commitment to my vision with the stunning photographs of my work.

• Erin Fitzsimon, for your collaboration and impeccable vocal soundscape.

• Marion Gaemers, for sharing the coiling technique that initiated my work with baling twine.

• Fiona Banner and Baylee Griffin, for your technical ceramics support and help with firings.

• My artsworker and artist peers and friends. I have appreciated our discussions, your feedback, and your enthusiasm for my work. I have communities of support, particularly throughout Queensland, and I am all the richer for having you in my life.

• You, the viewer / collector – I look forward to hearing your thoughts and receiving your critiques.

Thank you also to the arts organisations and staff that have supported me and my work for this exhibition, including:

• The UniSQ School of Creative Arts, for awarding me the inaugural 2023 Alumni Fellowship, which enabled me to pay for the framing of two of the larger stretched paper works (thanks Top Frames), and an introductory glassblowing session at JamFactory, tailored to my interests in asymmetrical, biomorphic vessels (thanks Carman Skeehan).

• The North Queensland Potters Association, for some initial firings of ceramic work.

• Outer Space, for the SUPERCUT project, which extended my animation experience, network and led to a rewarding sharing session at NorthSite Contemporary Arts.

I am thrilled to have some exciting opportunities coming up beyond good grief I look forward to sharing new work and exhibitions with you all soon.

Please stay tuned: www.danishquapoor.com | @danishquapoor

biography

Danish Quapoor is the artist pseudonym of Daniel Qualischefski, born 1989, Tulmur (Ipswich), Queensland, Australia. He is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and writer who has lived in regional south-east Queensland and metropolitan Victoria, and is now based on Gurambilbarra (Townsville).

Quapoor draws upon and occasionally subverts his somewhat conservative upbringing, and his work extends to realisations, contradictions and absurdities within identity, relationships, religion and sexuality. The artist’s practice spans (or combines) ceramics, textiles, and illustrative painting, with forays into animation, collage and photography. He typically works in a flat-colour style in which stylised biomorphic and geometric forms float amidst sparse compositions.

In his 15 years of exhibiting, Quapoor has held eight major and six minor solo exhibitions, been a lead artist in six collaborative exhibitions, and participated in over 70 group exhibitions. He has completed and facilitated diverse art projects, commissions, residencies, murals and workshops, predominantly in Queensland and Victoria. Quapoor holds a Master of Arts and Cultural Management from the University of Melbourne, and a Bachelor of Visual Arts and a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Creative Arts), Honours from the University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). He was the inaugural UniSQ School of Creative Arts Alumni Fellow (2023).

The artist was selected for Outerspace’s online SUPERCUT project (2022), and for QAGOMA’s Art as Exchange program on Girramay Country (Cardwell, North Queensland, 2021). He held a solo exhibition at the Biennale of Australian Art (BOAA, 2018), and illustrated 17 collections of African Children’s Stories (Dūcere Foundation, 2015-2018). Quapoor has had work, reviews and writing published in the Journal of Australian Ceramics, Art Guide, Imprint and Lemonade Letters.

As a curator and artsworker, Quapoor’s roles have encompassed managing and coordinating exhibitions, marketing, public programs and collection management. He finds that making art informs his work in galleries, and vice versa.

Back cover image: Danish Quapoor, monolith to me, 2022-2024 Blown glass, hand-pierced mid-fire black clay, clear gloss glaze and lustre 16.5 x 14 x 13.5cm

Photographer: Amanda Galea