Adam Lee and Clare Milledge Bring Lore and Language to Light

Clare Milledge b. 1977, Australia Follow +

What might paintings by an artist who grew up in the Australian bush look like?

Clare Milledge was raised in a converted army tent on Bundjalung Country, in Upper Coopers Creek in New South Wales. Her parents, both environmental scientists, centred in their lives plants, animals, and the soil around them.

'It seems very normal to me that trees have personalities and speak with each other and their inhabitants,' Milledge tells Ocula Magazine. 'Rocks transform, waterways are beings, and we are all related and part of each other.'

Over the past few years, Milledge's affinity for the natural world has permeated her research into her matrilineal Northern Irish heritage.

'I want to know how my ancestors related to the plants and animals and geology of the places they lived in,' she says.

Her new exhibition at STATION, titled bramble-hound; heron-wound; two stone wolves, draws on a 19th-century event in which one of Milledge's ancestors, a man called Denis Black, published a classified advert in the Catholic periodical, the New Zealand Tablet. In a bid to contact his brother, Dan, Black made a coded reference to 'Maledavin'—an anglicised version of Mala an Duibhéin, which in Irish means 'hill slope of the cormorant' and refers to a plot of land the brothers came from in Baile Beannacht, in the Glens of Antrim in Northern Ireland.

Each of the eight paintings in the exhibition is titled after a place on Raghery Island and in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, where Milledge's ancestors—mainly farmers and shipwrights—lived. Along with Mala an Duibhéin, other sites include Roideán (place of reddish mud), Easca na gCorr (marsh of the herons), and ​​Log na bhardán (hollow of the little poet).

'In Old Irish myth, the otherworld is right there with you, accessible through paradox and a variety of other techniques, language included,' Milledge says.

To create the works, Milledge uses oil paints in the hinterglasmalerei (reverse glass painting) technique: one side of a toughened glass panel is painted, and then displayed with the painted side against the wall.

Her method, however, is unconventional: she traces around objects and even her body to create shapes and compositions, while using brushes or her fingers to apply the paint.

Describing making work for recent exhibitions, she says: 'I literally sat on the glass and traced around my legs; it's less about the legs looking real and more about having direct contact with the work. The glass is my screen and skin.'

Milledge's five paintings on glass are fixed to the wall at each corner with custom bronze clasps—a recurring feature of her work that assumes a new zoomorphic form with each exhibition. Here, they are the heads of Irish cranes—significant symbols in Celtic folklore and, along with herons, often linked to the sorcerer figure corrguinech. Though now extinct, the cranes—talismanic guardians with their beaks snugly cradling the images—are given new life in Milledge's work. Each painting feels like an oversized charm, or a window onto an animalistic seer, separated from the mortal world by a transparent layer.

This thread of animism and etymology carries through into Adam Lee's concurrent exhibition at STATION, ʘJʘ (pronounced 'o-ho'), which comprises five large-scale paintings on paper and canvas.

Lee, who is based in the Macedon Ranges in Victoria, draws a wealth of influence from his natural environment.

'I'm surrounded by lots of bushland and rolling hills, thousands of gum trees and other wildlife. Around my studio we see everything from kangaroos, sugar gliders and wombats to an array of bird species,' he tells Ocula Magazine.

Birdwatching is an activity Lee shares with his daughter, with whom he keeps a written record of uncommon species they see.

'The owls still seem to hold me the most captive. Over time, different types have gradually made their way into my paintings, like little messengers or signs.'

Large, round owlish eyes dominate the titular painting ʘJʘ (2024), staring out against sweeping, muted washes of teal and blue-grey, shedding what appear to be technicoloured tears into bushy undergrowth where the subtle outlines of birds can be seen. In Eclipse (2024), the ghostly patterns on the wings of moths appear as camouflaged eyes, peering through swirling plumes of dusty pinks and lilacs.

Lee's exhibition title, he says, embraces the multiplicity of meaning inherent to language and translation.

'In Spanish, ojo literally means "eye". But it can also relate to the idea of the evil eye, as well as often being used colloquially as a warning, like saying "watch out!" or "keep your eyes open".'

Stylised ʘJʘ, the word itself becomes a sigil for a set of wide-open eyes.

'I think of it as a symbol for our seeing and watching, and also for our being seen and watched as well, maybe even hinting at the ways we encounter "supernatural" worlds beyond what we think of as seeable. In a sense, ʘJʘ becomes a symbol for the searching eyes of God.' —[O]

Clare Milledge: bramble-hound; heron-wound; two stone wolves and Adam Lee: ʘJʘ are on view at STATION in Melbourne from 20 July to 24 August 2024.

Published in collaboration with Melbourne Art Foundation, who produce Melbourne Art Fair (20–23 February 2025).

Main image: Exhibition view: Adam Lee, ʘJʘ, STATION, Melbourne (20 July–24 August 2024). Courtesy the artist and STATION. Photo: Simon Strong.