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Folding Time installation view 2
2022
October 2022 - Raft Art Space
Folding Time
Up cycled aluminium mesh is a material I discovered a couple of years ago which has truly determined a new direction for my arts practice. After collecting it from the local metal recyclers, it is graded into different thicknesses and colours and then washed. I love working with this material as it allows me to make large scale art relatively easily. I get pleasure from combining the physicality of making sculptures and being able to create works that have a drawing like quality and a two dimensionality. Working large scale allows me to wrestle a bit with the sculpture. It’s like having another being or body that you have to negotiate with as one does in a relationship only its not human.
This current body of work is an exploration into folding mesh whilst contemplating the unfathomable age of the powerful Macdonell ranges. Its’ commanding presence is all encompassing and has held me on in awe since the first time I travelled down Namatjira drive, Central Australia, in 2002.
In my studio, my worktable faces the Ntaripe, the east MacDonnell ranges. For 15 years, looking north, the majestic rock face has often taken my breath away. It fills me with a sense of nurture, like a mother taking care of all who inhabit beneath it. I allow this view to permeate my practice as I fold and staple the mesh together.
Looking out my window I notice crevices and cracks, intrusions and angles. They prompt me to ponder the 100’s if not 1000’s of millions of years since the range’s creation. I contemplate all the cycles of constructing, folding and eroding between then and now.
Previously my work has been themed around water, ocean and waves. “Folding time” also considers the ocean, but as a point of difference, it considers waters' history within Australia’s centre. Just metres from my front door there are rocks that show evidence of an inland sea. Before the Macdonell range was formed millions of years ago, the interior seabed floor imprinted its patterns in rocks that now lay scattered around my home. I find it fascinating how these patterns are mirrored on every part of the planet, both on land and water in macro and microcosmic scales. The ripple patterns are ubiquitous and always have been. This fossilised rock beneath my feet connects me with time immemorial.
The repetitive act of folding the mesh is like a meditation, a time space where I can minimise my agendas and connect with the rhythms of the earth.