with a steely resolve
Mandy Quadrio
Gallery 1
Opening 03.07.19 6-8pm
Artist Talks 25.07.19 6-7pm
Materials: steel wool, bull kelp, aluminium, velvet
This exhibition, with a steely resolve, speaks to complex dialogues that reference historic and contemporary issues resulting from Australian colonialism. Abrasive steel wool, Tasmanian bull kelp and aluminium photographic plates are used to hold and weave narratives that speak to the intentional and legally sanctioned genocide that was perpetrated on palawa, Tasmanian Aboriginal, people.
Quadrio uses harsh and abrasive steel wool to speak to attempts to ‘scrub out,’ to clean away and to annihilate palawa people. She takes the harsh materiality of steel wool to create sensuous forms that could perhaps be considered as artefacts or remnants suggestive of her material culture.
The inclusion of the natural material of bull kelp that is gathered from her country, contrasts with the western manufactured materiality of coarse steel wool. The potency of the bull kelp, part of her living material culture, firmly anchors her practice.
Scratched and eroded images on mirror substrate are projected onto incised, aluminium plates. As gestures of erasure, these ambiguous, scratched surfaces add to the dialogue between presence and absence.
No longer contained by ethno-museology, this work steps out of the containment of the archival vitrine to celebrate and to strengthen her sense of palawa identity and her socio-political presence and place.
The artist wishes to thank SIFA for their generous donation of steel wool.
Images
Mandy Quadrio, Nest, 2018 , Steel wool, bull kelp Photographer: Carl Warner
Mandy Quadrio, siblings, 2018 , Steel wool, bull kelp Photographer: Carl Warner
Mandy Quadrio, warkerlenner, 2018 , Steel wool, bull kelp Photographer: Carl Warner
Mandy Quadrio, to hold the memory of them 2, 2018 , Steel wool, bull kelp, river reed, Photographer: Carl Warner
Mandy Quadrio, mathinna, 2018 , Steel wool, bull kelp Photographer: Carl Warner
Mandy Quadrio, to hold the memory of them 1, 2018 , Steel wool, bull kelp, wire Photographer: Carl Warner