Gallery 9 is proud to present works by Elaine Campaner from 2000 - 2010 in the first of two exhibitions celebrating Elaine's unique art practice titled Elaine Campaner: A Celebration Pt. 1 (2000-2010). Open 18 May to 11 June, with an opening reception being held on Saturday 21 May, 2 - 4:30pm.
Elaine Campaner: A Celebration Pt. 1 (2000-2010) will show selected works from Campaner's exhibitions New Testament According to Small Children 2000, Internment 2006, Paradise if you can Stand it 2007, Holiday 2007 and Travelling North 2009. A slideshow will display all works exhibited in these shows and we have created a website archiving her exhibitions from 2000 - 2020 which will be published during the course of the exhibition.
Very few artists or poets ever spell out what message or emotion we should take away as viewers. Nor do we overly concern ourselves with how an art work was made although poor execution is always conceptually wanting. Elaine Campaner made enigmatic works some with overt political meanings most open to multiple readings depending on the receiver.
Elaine Campaner's depicts her 'atlas mundi' or world view in miniature tableaux using small scale domestic objects and materials. She was truly brilliant at it. Assemblage artists in all media share a cognitive ability to disassociate the familiar into what else it's shape or texture evokes. The large colour photographs are beautiful in themselves as prints but depend on the exquisite choreography of textures and lustrous surfaces in each tableaux. Tissue papers for eg become a lunar landscape or sea. There is an initial gear change as we recognise the figurines and disassembled objects recast in a tableaux that might have overt political or social reference or be a touchstone to shared experiences or be mysterious surreal and otherworldly. Campaner recognised the role that the associations we bring to the objects is an essential part of the response:
I am interested in how 'retro' objects can invoke a strange regression based on childhood associations, and why this is a form of aesthetic sensation - often the involuntary aesthetic pleasure of jouissance
As time passes the objects we immediately recognise from their former function may be unfamiliar to a future generation but the image created will have a life of its own.
Campaner considered herself a painter. She could have just painted, sculpted or photographed equally imaginary worlds. Assemblage however, was not simply a means to an end. The materials held their own aesthetic and conceptual meaning. As Campaner wrote;
I use the material stuff of life as literal or conceptual signifiers. The uncertainty of what
you are looking at literally and representationally enables visual and conceptual
complexity.
The viewer often has a sense of being outside the scene and spaces of a doll's house. We zoom from microcosm to macrocosm, the everyday to the global. Campaner's commentaries on her exhibitions show the depth and range of her how there are;
Multiple and reoccurring themes in my work, including Australian post-colonial identity and migration; refugee migration; the gap between the projected and the actual; the cultural hegemony of mining and energy companies; and the impact on the environment as we produce and produce and consume and consume in search of an ever receding and ideal 'place in the sun'
Among the early works are two Barbie blokes re-costumed as St John the Baptist coming out of the desert retreat with his sustenance of honey and locusts and Jesus Christ as the Good shepherd. They stride forward confident of their message for the world matching the sanitised child's bible version of religion. Just believe and you'll be saved – adults know it's not that simple.
Later works mostly moved away from close encounters with single figures. Puny humans seem distracted by the world of baggage carousels (many know that scenario) and stock exchanges anxieties. Paradise is illusory. Some scenarios have seemingly overt political overtones, figures punished by their fellows are interned or abandoned. These images reflect the misery of institutional power over vulnerable people. A tiny refugee boat tries to breach the 100% white Australian border, others jostle and jump up to be taken in as refugees. Even leisure is shallow tourists at the mysterious and sacred mound of Uluru are absorbed in their own world.
Several of Elaine Campaner's works lived with me for some years but were dutifully donated to collections to be pondered and absorbed other viewers. One later major work remains treasured. As with all theatre naturalism and realism and surrealism can happily co exist and collaborate. Campaner's images address sombre themes or question shallow distractions but their beauty is also redemptive and inspiring.
Gael Newton, Independent Curatorial Consultant/Researcher and former Senior Curator of Australian and International Photography at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra.
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