LSB Great work BRIGIT HELLER

CONGRATULATIONS BRIGIT HELLER

for her outstanding exhibit 
Paradiso perduto (2017-18), steel, 300 'fronds'
130 - 210 cm high (variable)

presently showing in the Lorne Sculpture Biennale 2018
(Endangerment and biodiversity)

(Judging by the sold stickers this is a much appreciated work.)

Heller exhibited with WINDOWSPACE-BEEAC in June/July 2015, with out of place, (2015) and she and Bronwyn Razem gave an 'in the window' performance - 'weaving in the window' (July 2015).

Barking Spider Visual Theatre-SALT, a collaboration

SALT, April (2018)

SALT plays with the dream world.

This is a dream of another time and place-

A place where the impossible to possible and the improbable is
likely

What you will see........

When you look in the window of WINDOWSPACE-BEEAC, you will see, illuminated, a debutante dress.  This dress is hovering, floating above a bed of glittering, sparkling salt.  This dress is not static though.  As if inhabited by the ghost of a long forgotten dancer, the dress rotates, slowly around and around. The dancer - the imagined young woman in the dress, is changeling: transforming from human to Brolga - or is it the other way round?

Within the dress itself appear shadows.  These tell a cyclical tale of a young woman transforming to a brolga and back again, alluding to the local Dreamtime story.

Scattered throughout the salt are left over things, forgotten and abandoned things - forgotten and abandoned from a woman's story that has never been told.  These objects themselves are being repossessed by nature, by lichens and flowers, by bugs and birds, and by rot and decay. Some of these things though, float, hover - sometimes spin, above the salt, with minds of their own.

This is the universe where a woman is centre - a changeling.

This is a woman's story that possesses the land.

About

SALT is a visual arts/installation project addressing historical female representation in local history with a focus on the region's Salt Lakes. SALT is a partnership with WINDOWSPACE-BEEAC, Studio 92 SkillConnection Colac, Colac Otway Arts Trail and enLIGHTen Me Festival, Birregurra.  SALT was led by regionally-based Barking Spider Visual Theatre and engaged artists of diverse abilities across Colac-Otway area.  The project was developed at Barking Spider's studio at Red Barn Farm in Cundare North.

The artists are Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane, who are new to the area, having bought a small property in Cundare North in 2015. The farm - Red Barn Farm, has a big old barn, and this is the artistic engine room for the artists, and for Barking Spider Visual Theatre - their company.  Penelope and Jason were joined by artist Kyoko Imazu, another stable Barking Spider artist.

The artists trialled leaving objects-including Penelope's mother's wedding dress, a cow skull, macramé shell plant holders, pearls, feathers and bones, in highly salted baths.  Following the "how to salt crystals" method, they hoped to grow salt crystals on these objects - but the crystals wouldn't take.  So they went to Plan B-still using salt crystals as a main feature of the installation, but with objects buried/submerged in the salt, and the dress embellished with feathers from local birds.

Kyoko worked on the shadow puppets, Jason was responsible for the lighting, and Penelope pulled together the other elements for the installation.

About the artists

Penelope and Jason each have multiple art-form practices, which combined encompass theatre creation, performance and design, puppetry, installation creation, writing, lighting and set design and story telling.  Penelope is the artistic director of Barking Spider Visual Theatre and Jason is one of the company's core artists: they have been artistic collaborators for 15 years.  For SALT Jason created the lighting design and collaborated with Penelope on the overall installation design.  Penelope worked on the detailing within their installation.

Kyoko is a Japanese artist whose practice encompasses paper-cuts, printmaking, bookbinding and ceramics.  Kyoko made the shadow puppets for the installation.  Barking Spider Visual Theatre works across museums, galleries, theatres, communities, schools, festivals, residencies, workshops for radio and for site -specific projects.  Please look us up on social media or our website.

 

______________________________

Come and listen to the artists talk about SALT and the collaboration

Saturday 14 April  2pm at WINDOWSPACE-BEEAC 
79 Main Street, Beeac

In the meantime, drive by look through the window both day and night and see the story, the glistening salt, lights and shadows and imagine.  

lights on 31 March 

1-29 April 2018

Barking Spider’s sites

Instagram: https://instagram.com/barking_spider_visual_theatre_/     @barking_spider_visual_theatre 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barkingspidertheatre

Twitter: https://twitter.com/barkingspiderth

You tube: https://www.youtube.com/user/barkingspidertheatre

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user12739305/videos

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/search?q=barking%20spider%20visual%20theatre

Website:  http://www.barkingspidertheatre.com.au

Liz Walker - Words from the Artist

The making of Salt Lake took a lot of thought and many, many hours. Aluminium sourced from vintage pot lids and domestic ware was a natural material choice for many of the pieces referencing not only the strange metallic colour of the lake but the factory and workers that once earned their living from the salt they harvested from its source.

My intention was to make an installation which reflected the lake, its history and the people who lived around it and so I included various domestic fragments- all of which could quite easily have been collected from the edge of the lake.

Many of the fragments, including the growth on the old chair were treated with salt over a period of weeks in order to imitate the effect of being submerged in the brine and then exposed to the air once again.

Looking at the work you’ll notice a dry and deflated football and an old leather boot. Both were found in a parched river bed but could easily have been found in Beeac.  The salt shaker speaks for itself and the small oil funnel references the site of the Gainger Bros Garage where the installation is displayed. Old bottles, jug and pot, money tin and biscuit container, old brass taps and telephone insulator supports remember the people and life of the town.  As does the satchel, constructed out of iron, looking like its been cast aside at the end of the working day at the factory.

Thinking about the birdlife and brine shrimp they feed on, I grew salt crystals on one of the nests and some of the feathers. Gum leaves constructed out of rusted and burnt metal scattered around the floor space could have been collected from around the town -if only they were real.

The window frame presents   the viewer with an ariel view of Lake Beeac at various stages of its annual cycle-dry and crystalline, when the sun rises or perhaps when its setting and when the lake is full of water once again and teaming with life.

'Salt Lake' is displayed in the window until Sunday March 25, 2018.

_____________________________

Liz Walker will be running a workshop as part of Lorne Sculpture Biennale  Education Program 2018:

Spectacular Sea Dragons

Come and make your own Dancing Dragon from the Forgotten Forests 

Join artist Liz Walker and Avis Gardner as they guide you in a creative process working with natural and recycled materials in the construction of your own spectacular sea dragon. 

Learn and be inspired by Weedy and Leafy Sea Dragons; the marine emblem of Victoria and South Australia . These little-known but incredibly fascinating creatures are incredibly beautiful and endemic to our fragile

southern reefs. 

Sunday 25 March- 10 - 12pm and 2 - 4 pm

Suitable for children 7 years and above accompanied by a parent

Booking essential http://lornesculpture.com/happening-now-2018.php

art-speak, nature and aesthetics - LORNE BIENNALE

art-speak, nature and aesthetics - LORNE BIENNALE

musings by Doug Williams

“Nature and aesthetics have long had a special relationship in the creation of sculpture in the landscape.”

I would go further and say that sculptural elements in the natural world are what define man-made sculpture, that the creation of the latter could not exist without the former.

By “seeking to replicate ... the living presence of a cry for environmental awareness and responsibility” these sculptors are taking on a very great task indeed.

Are they up to that task? It’s hard to say really since to evaluate their success will be only be possible by empirical assessment from a long term point of view, by examining the works through the inverted lens of a telescope (if that metaphor could be realised in fact).

But as for the individual works themselves there is much to be appreciated and much to learn.

Do they reflect the theme Nature+Humanity+Art ?  Well as near as I can say that in the main they mostly attain to this prerequisite. Each artist does so in an individual manner:  eg. site 25 : The Observers by Greg Johns. I like this sculpture. I like it for what it is as much as for what the artist says it is. That is the brilliant thing about certain pieces – I am able to say “I get it.” It’s a simple and primal understanding that a sculpture can convey to me. Doesn’t need explaining, doesn’t require justification.

I do feel it important that the artist forgo describing their work in too much detail. If the purpose or the meaning and message are spelled out for the viewer it leaves them no room to move and makes it less likely for a subjective take to be made. If the artist tells us what s/he is trying to achieve by exhibiting a work that is different from telling us what the work may say to us. There is no reveal and no opportunity for us to independently arrive at the spot the artist intends we reach if the definition is provided in overly descriptive, analytical terms.

And paradoxically often the write-up provided is couched in art-speak. I’m not a fan of art-speak. As jo Vonda said: "The result is to make art appreciation elitist. The concocted language is tortuous in its attempt to say something original and clever but so often is just incomprehensible. Some of it is sibling to gibberish, a lot of it is first cousin to pomposity". 
When Shoso Shimbu hopes that a "nuanced work being a conduit to change" it shows that art-speak can cross cultures as well as language. Why have the courage to put your art out there in the open for all the world to see and enjoy but then keep the viewer at arm’s length (or further) by shrouding it with words which betray the implicit invitation to engage in an unequivocal way? 

The KISS principle applies. There should be no implied barrier between the viewer and any work of art. Although he spoke about sculpture in general terms by declaring "I invent nothing, I re-discover”, I cannot for the life of me imagine Rodin befuddling people with a wordy blurb about The Thinker. On the other hand Henry Moore said, "To know one thing, you must know the opposite". This Zen-like remark, while obscure, does not refer to one particular piece of work and so cannot be construed as distancing the viewer from the artwork as occurs with the use of art-speak. Of course these two sculptors were pre-post- modernism so the prevailing memes were very different to those of today.

Nevertheless, despite the profusion and tenacity of art-speak a number of the works look extremely interesting. This comment is based on what has been made available in the catalogue which is not necessarily what will be on display but what I can see does have me eager with anticipation.

The Lorne Independent, March 2018