Quest Into the Black Field: An Exploration of Hypnogogic Imagery and Other Hallucinations

Amina McConvell

Opening 06.06.15 6-8pm
Artist Talks 27.06.15 6-7pm

This installation is part of a larger body of work titled Hypnogogic by Darwin based artist Amina McConvell. Hypnogogic is currently appearing in various guises as a series of sight-specific works at a number of venues between Yogyakarta (Indonesia), Sydney, Alice Springs and Darwin in 2015.

Quest into The Blackness: An Exploration of Hypnogogic Imagery and Other Hallucinations,
explores the phenomena of visual hallucinations from a range of different perspectives, from Neuroscience to spiritualist ‘Vision Quests’; from the movement to the aesthetics of psychedelia, McConvell nods to all of these influences; the kitschy and the minimal, the out-there, the scientific and the retro.

The making of this particular installation was based on a self-styled vision quest where by the artist documented imagery associated with any unusual visual phenomena she experienced, including: hypnogogic imagery (this is imagery which occurs in the period directly before sleep) and other hallucinations induced by migraine, heat stroke and grief. In many of these experiences the artist notes that the imagery encountered is typically internal imagery; abstract and somewhat anarchic in its formlessness, imagery can be described as coloured blobs of light and geometric patterns whirling around in blackness. Evocative of an intergalactic landscape, spatial distortions occur, as abstract forms in motion appear to move arbitrarily across a black field of vision and occasionally false images are projected onto the word outside.

This work was developed during a recent one-month residency at Krack! Screen Print Studio, Yogyakarta (Jogja), and takes many of its cartoonagrphic stylistic cues from the street art scene in Jogja. This installation includes a series of screen prints on wood that were produced from Amina’s designs by Rudi (Lampung) Hermawan |Studio Manager and master printer at Krack! Print Studio.

*The development of this project was supported by the Australia Council for the Arts Artstart Program and Arts NT The Northern Territory Government.