Fountain

Sundari Carmody

Gallery 3
Opening 03.04.19 6-8pm
Artist Talks 25.04.19 6-7pm

How might we develop our senses so that they become attuned to things that are cloaked in mystery? Undoubtedly our universe is full of unknown unknowns. How do we even begin to contend with this confounding realisation? Perhaps we can start by reminding ourselves, of the revelatory sensation of our eyes slowly adjusting to the dark.

We are often right on the threshold of the awareness of such things, even staring straight at them but missing the critical characteristic. If we are just out of sync with it, perhaps a  different temporal dimension might reveal a hidden rhythmic aspect. A seemingly lacklustre plant that goes largely unnoticed by day might reveal a splendid bloom and a divine fragrance in the moonlight.

Sundari Carmody’s Fountain, consists of a series of aromatique vapours that are delivered into the gallery environment by a set of prototype misting devices. She has synthesised oils from flowers whose popular names (Moonflower, Evening Primrose, Night-Blooming Jasmine) attest to a nocturnal phenomenon and whose fragrances are evocative of the night. She combines these with other substances - melatonin and Poppy Seed oil, both of which are sleep inducing and luringly suggestive of the dark.

Fountain is informed by Carmody’s research in the fields of botany and cosmology. Her focus has been on the growth cycles (circadian rhythms) of medicinal and psychoactive plants, the history of observations of planetary and galaxy rotation, and the altered states of consciousness associated with both. It is often in the liminal state, between wakefulness and sleep that we might sense traces of things that lie beyond the threshold of ordinary perception. Fountain, subtly crafts an intoxicating atmosphere to usefully illustrate the possibility of such encounters.

- Matthew Bradley

You can read the exhibition essay by Madeline Reece here.