OTHER WORLDS

Group Exhibition

3 September — 21 September 2024

The sound of a crying baby had ricocheted through the dusty streets of the remote community of Mount Liebig all day, and all the night before. It's a small, remote township in the Western Desert of Australia, populated by about one hundred and sixty Pintupi and Luritja people. The community nurse couldn’t quell the anguish of the little girl. At her wit's end, her mother had walked to the local art centre. Inside, Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri sat working on one of his vast paintings. It was a work imbued with his stories, ancient history, and lore—a different sort of history to the written one we are familiar with.

He looked up and held out his arms, and the mother gave the baby to him. He put his hand on her forehead and began to sing a story from another time in language. Almost immediately, the little girl's cries stopped—Bill passed her back and returned to his painting. The old man was a Ngangkari, a healer. Throughout the red desert, people would say he had ‘panpura ngangkarinanyi’ or ‘someone who could touch the soul’. Bill lived in this world, but his power was from another.

It’s hard to rationally explain the events of that day. However, the essence of what we can’t begin to understand is attuned to the heart of this exhibition. In the old man’s paintings, the lore lives on. The lines and dots—these hidden narratives—show us an alternate way of connecting with the land, each other, and our subconscious.

In Other Worlds, old and new worlds converge. History painting and personal narratives intersect. The Edge, by Peter Gardiner, draws from the 1857 painting Niagara by Frederic Edwin Church. It is a work with a Divine quality, the sense of awe is enough to send one into palpitations upon viewing. The power of the water plummeting over the edge contrasts with a strange sense of calmness in the face of calamity, unified through the colour that floods the picture.

Gardiner’s articulation is juxtaposed with Brett McMahon's gothic, introspective investigations of the Australian bush—vast, yet magnified through a narrow aperture. The sense of entanglement in the landscape is all-pervasive. The artist is in tune with his observations of his world. He transfers our consciousness to another place. The texture of old broken trees and fire-blackened surfaces has a physical materiality that envelops us, and yet we cannot look away.

Matt Coyle’s Vestibule is a deeply beautiful yet disturbing vision of comfort. The seductiveness of the painted surface suggests a comfortable sitdown could be transported into the dark heart of a David Lynch film. The illusory experience reminds us that beauty and dystopia can collide, and we must seek truth beyond the obvious.

Lottie Consalvo's video work, La Femme, is a deep meditation. Raw, yet hypnotically beautiful, it blurs the lines between ritualistic and subliminal languages. The deeply moving sentiment within the video is echoed within her paintings. Part abstraction, part literal experience—it is transcendent. Consalvo delivers all in a deliberately ambiguous language, and we are challenged to decipher if this is the past, or the present.

 

The way we acknowledge our place in the land and the historical truth of our heritages is under constant interpretation and revision. It is the role of the artist to forge narratives that make us think beyond what our eyes would have us believe. Look again at the painting by Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri. The only linkage to the magic he possessed is embedded in the canvas.

Ralph Hobbs
September, 2024 

\ Exhibition featured works

Todd McMillan

A Sign III

2016 \ Cyanotype on Belgian linen \ 161.4 x 114.4cm, framed

Francisco Goya

Andarse por las ramas (to go amongst the branches)

1816-1823 \ Etching \ F. 33 x 50cm

Brett McMahon

Bark

2020-24 \ Mixed media \ 290 x 180cm

SOLD

Floria Tosca

Bee

2023 \ Ink and paint on cane toad skin, placed in found jewlery case \ 20cm x 20cm x 7cm

SOLD

Søren Solkær

Black Sun #44

2018 \ Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Baryta paper \ 100 x 150 unframed (113 x 161cm framed)

Brooklyn Whelan

Cloud with Neon Strike

2024 \ Oil and mixed media on canvas \ 107 x 214cm

Tanya Linney

Do You Realize

2024 \ Acrylic and oil on linen \ 47.5 x 37.5cm

SOLD

Brett McMahon

Fall

2020-24 \ Mixed media \ 340 x 240cm

Stuart Spence

Honolulu

2004 \ Cotton rag archival pigment print, Edition of 8 \ F. 110.8 x 168.2cm

James Rogers

Inside Reef

2024 \ Waxed mild steel \ 160 x 90 x 60cm

Lottie Consalvo

La Femme

2024 \ Single channel video, 5min, Edition of 3 and 2 AP

Selma Coulthard

Lila, My Grandmother's Stories 505-21WAC

Watercolour on paper \ 59 x 95cm

SOLD

Lottie Consalvo

No words I

2024 \ Acrylic on linen \ 30 x 20cm

SOLD

James Powditch

Palette VI

2023 \ Mixed media \ 92 x 34cm

Floria Tosca

Phototrophic body 1

2023 \ Handformed and blown glass \ 25cm x 5cm approx dimensions variable

Floria Tosca

Phototrophic body 2

2023 \ Handformed and blown glass \ 25cm x 5cm approx dimensions variable

Floria Tosca

Phototrophic body 3

2023 \ Handformed and blown glass \ 15cm x 5cm approx dimensions variable

Floria Tosca

Phototrophic body 4

2023 \ Handformed and blown glass \ 25cm x 5cm approx dimensions variable

Floria Tosca

Positive phototropism

2023 \ Handformed and blown glass \ 25cm x 15cm

Tanya Linney

Resurrection

2024 \ Acrylic and polymer paint on poly cotton \ 47.5 x 37.5cm

Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri

Rockholes near the Olgas

Circa 2008 \ Acrylic on linen \ 185.5 x 274.5cm

SOLD

Lottie Consalvo

Searching for endings

2024 \ Acrylic on heavy sized linen \ 100 x 120cm

Suzanne Archer

Shadows,Wind, Flies and Rock Formations - Stanwell Park Beach

2023 \ Oil on canvas \ 198 x 410cm

James Rogers

Skeleton Bay

Waxed mild steel \ 210 x 95 x 50cm

Floria Tosca

Skototropism

2024 \ Handformed glass \ 30cm x 12cm

Christopher Horder

Sparks of Nature

2021 \ Oil on board \ 60 x 45cm

Peter Gardiner

The Edge

2022 \ Oil on canvas \ 183 x 305cm

John Olsen

The Spanish Kitchen

2003 \ Oil on canvas \ 113x128cm framed

Dorothy Napangardi

Untitled (NAPD2-0113KM)

2013 \ Acrylic on linen \ 182.5 x 244cm

Matt Coyle

Vestibule

2024 \ Acrylic and enamel on canvas \ 150 x 150cm

Floria Tosca

Whalebone Body

2022 \ Ink and paint on packaging, insect wing, placed in found jewlery case \ 55cm x 26cm x 5cm

\ INSTALLATION PHOTO 1 OTHER WORLDS

\ INSTALLATION PHOTO 2 OTHER WORLDS

\ INSTALLATION PHOTO 3 OTHER WORLDS

\ INSTALLATION PHOTO 4 OTHER WORLDS

\ INSTALLATION PHOTO 5 OTHER WORLDS

\ INSTALLATION PHOTO 6 OTHER WORLDS

\ INSTALLATION PHOTO 7 OTHER WORLDS

\ News

Media

Washington Post Art Critic Sebastian Smee reviews the work of Matt Coyle in The Monthly, October 2024

1 October 2024

Coyle’s recent work, which he showed at Nanda\Hobbs gallery in Sydney this year, is utterly transfixing.

Read more

\ Other exhibitions

Jun Chen

RED LAND

24 September — 19 October 2024

Suzanne Archer

Winds of change and sands of time

12 August — 31 August 2024

Brooklyn Whelan

Weekly Spotlight: Brooklyn Whelan

30 July — 6 August 2024

Contact Us

to find out more about OTHER WORLDS.

12 - 14 Meagher Street Chippendale, NSW 2008
Opening Hours
Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm Saturday, 11am - 4pm Closed Public Holidays (and Easter Saturday)