In her first solo exhibition of 2012, Patricia Piccinini has created a body of work that confronts the viewer with images of beautiful mutation - an interplay of the real and the surreal, questioning how we view the beauty in the natural and unnatural forms around us.
Following on from her previous shows at Tolarno Galleries, There are no strangers perverts the course of 'hyper-realism', presenting the world with an alternate reality that lives concurrently with our own. Each of the four sculptures possess a level of empathy, drawing viewers in with paternal familiarity, before confronting them with a version of nature that could be living alongside us. These sculptures are complemented by a series of hi gloss paintings finished in metallic automotive paint on aluminium.
‘On the surface’ says Patricia Piccinini, ‘the new automotive panels seem to come from a quite different place than the sculptures, but for me they are closely related. They come from the same world. This is a world where beauty and novel forms are generated by technological processes.’
The central work in the exhibition, The Welcome Guest takes its title from Goethe: ‘Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest’. This compelling work is an interaction between a child to whom we are immediately drawn and an unlikely looking creature with ridiculously long claws and ornately patterned hair on its back. The child's joy at seeing this beast marvels at what we find beautiful in this world. This is a work ‘that reflects on the beauty and strangeness of nature,’ says Piccinini.
The Coup is another interaction between a boy who appears more primate than human. ‘I imagine him as a representative from some hybrid species, somehow independent, possibly an escapee or an accident,’ says Piccinini. This time nature is the creator of a brilliantly coloured parrot that has settled on the adolescent’s hand.
Nectar is an amorphous organism that appears to be constantly oozing a honey-like liquid. ‘It represents the idea of the endless, productive capacity of the organic world,’ says Piccinini, ‘and the combination of anxiety and wonder that motivates many of my figurative sculptures.’ While the initial sight of Nectar is disturbing, the confusion slowly slips away as the viewer begins to wonder where it has come from, and why it is emitting a beautiful looking amber fluid: bewilderment gives way to curiosity and wonder.
Piccinini's career as a sculptor, photographer, painter and installation artist has spanned decades since she began exhibiting in the 1990s. She represented Australia at the 2003 Venice Biennale and has exhibited widely since then. Her work is currently included in Fairy Tales, Monsters, and the Genetic Imagination at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee.
Of There are no strangers, Piccinini explains, ‘All of these works have one foot in the real world, although perhaps only one. On both compositional and conceptual levels they interact with something from the ordinary world - a person, an animal, an object or an idea. These interactions are there to remind us that even if they are strangers to us now, they will not be for long.’
There are no strangers coincides with the publication of Helen McDonald’s book: Patricia Piccinini: Nearly Beloved (Piper Press 2012). www.piperpress.com.au
Press release courtesy Tolarno Galleries.
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