Turbulence looks at systems of equilibrium and balance. The objects are transitional: they respond to airflow and ambient movement. Water evaporates; plants grow or die and change the balance of a structure; flags waver in response to the tiniest air movements; systems are in flux.
Turbulence is also about time – geological time versus human time. A 100 million year old Australian opal fossil balances against a contemporary specimen collected just a few weeks ago. There are lenses for looking backwards and forwards and devices that attempt to predict storms and track our changing temperatures.
'Rothwell’s is a relentlessly conceptual practice; her ruminations on the environmental state of play and the bumbling consequences of human ‘progress’ are undercut with humour and even optimism. Her ruminations on the environmental state of play and the bumbling consequences of human ‘progress’ are undercut with humour and even optimism.' – Anne Loxley, Senior Curator, MCA 2012
Current projects include:
Composer, a major sculpture commission for Museum of Contemporary Art, Australia;
Antipodes: cut apart, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK; Fragility, XIII Biennale of Cuenca, Ecuador.
Recent projects include:
Cartwheeling Youngsters, six bronze sculptures, Rhodes Foreshore, Canada Bay Council;
Habit, Temple Contemporary, Philadelphia;
Dark Heart: Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia;
Urpflanze Street Plants, solo exhibition at Museum of Economic Botany; OMI International Arts Centre residency, New York;
The Pulse of Time (with Chiharu Shiota), Future Perfect, Singapore.
'What may at first appear playful or innocent in Rothwell's work - shiny surfaces, toy-like contours, the allure of a flower or animal - are typically decoys for more ominous or unsettling subjects.' – Art Gallery of NSW 2013
Press release courtesy Tolarno Galleries.