Ruby Fazal

Carolyn V Watson is a Brisbane based interdisciplinary artist. At The Ambience Store Project 009 (2016), curated by Carrie McCarthy, she exhibited Inbloom, sculpture installations and paintings that enamoured the audience as well as fill them with fascination and curiosity. The works invoke a personal nostalgia and dissociation due to the the strange states in which they exist. Through an interview, a more in depth context and certain themes that drive Watson’s creative practice is discovered including her plans for 2017. 

(Photo from iPhone) Ruby: What, in general, drives you to create art?

Carolyn: For me, the underlying motivation for making is possibilities and proof  of existence.

I am fortunate enough to be able to partake in a readily dismissed indulgence, so for me it is a matter of making the memorable, the impossible, the unknown. Making images and objects that cannot be defined by words, but become conduits and catalysts for unraveled memories and gut response.

Ruby: Would you say you have a preferred medium or are you more interdisciplinary?

Carolyn: I have now come to define my practice as that of being a maker. There is no hierarchy to my disciplines as each feed and sustain the other. But what I will bring focus to is the importance that drawing has played in my development. Essentially, it is the drawing where it all begins. From my forth year to almost my fortieth, without the line that drawing provides, it is difficult to project a level of confidence required to undertake monumental objects or physically intensive images.

Ruby: What inspired the works for this exhibition, and are the paintings and sculptures connected through any themes aside from the prominent animal figures?

Carolyn: Whilst making the body of work for Inbloom, there were indeed themes in play and intentions that were driving the process of the work to resolution. It was only after completion and install that I began to see how clearly the works played of each other and how each echoed the underlying sentiments of Theinbetween.  For me it is about the instability and the obscure, a place where the familiar is defined but there is also a welcome strangeness that pervades the work. Images of animal forms float calmly, blocked in subtle space of a muted palette. This was in distinct opposition to the grotesque character of the original source imagery. The sculptures wrapped themselves in time laboured techniques only hinting at what they may have been.  

The references to the natural world and elements of mortality are unescapable and there is something quite primal in the construction and application of these works. Being a process driven maker, the open-ended nature of my practice I believe of the encourages a more inclusive interpretation of the work.

Thereareknownknowns (She Waits) (Photo via http://www.carolynvwatson-artist.com/)

Ruby: Is the beach a source of inspiration and would you say you are concerned with sustainable art practices? Because a lot of the sculpture pieces and the colours made me nostalgic for the beach!

Carolyn: This is a beautiful sentiment to take from the work Ruby. Although not my intention to make that reference, you could draw a comparison about the essence of renewal that the beach offers.

As all my materials and imagery are sourced from things that have passed, whether they be animal or techniques ( Ie the use of doilies), and in my role I have the capabilities to reinterpret / reconfigure and to see the value in these lives.

Although my work is not based within the sustainable art sphere, as I do use elements that are artificial, I do also only use the discarded-  such as leather offcuts and donated bone and crochet,  and for the last four years I have only been using water based materials in my drawn paintings.

Ruby: I personally felt quite emotionally connected to your pieces because I felt disconnection in them, especially The Sleeper because it is literally disconnected from itself.

Carolyn:  The Sleeper was a deeply personal work and one of the most challenging pieces I have ever undertaken. (The gustation of the work was close to 10months. Without giving full disclosure, the work acknowledges an irreparable rift yet the outcome is a thing of beauty.)

There is no hiding the fact that the presence of the maker is evident in my work, which I believe becomes the lure and offers out that sense of connection. There is an emotional link with the materials and the composition of the forms. I also feel there is a relationship between the care and integrity of the work and the viewer. It all these intuitive elements that act as an invite and willingly encourage interpretation. 

The Sleeper (Photo via Carolyn V Watson)

Ruby: Did you have set goals and intentions for the pieces or would you say you went with the flow more? For example, did you decide at the beginning the exact colour palette you would be using for the entire body of work?

Carolyn: It was the opportunity of The Ambience Store Project 009,   that allowed myself  both mentally and physically the chance to play and develop as an artist without the pressure of a commercial gallery exhibition.

Essentially, the main intention I had for Inbloom was to consciously use source imagery and materials that seen in isolation were quite morbid and highly grotesque. I wanted to find the beauty in these states of deconstruction and in doing so allow myself to become comfortable with the notion of beauty within my work.  For many years, I had exhibited work that feed off the dichotomy of revulsion/compulsion. It has been over the last 24 to 36 months that there has been a slow turning to a more sophisticated and subliminal hand in my practice. I wanted to intrigue and fascinate, without the work becoming contrived. Buy chance, I began working with a palette that both challenged me and drew the focus onto the materiality of the form. Likewise, with the sculptures, by choosing to mute the colour scheme, other senses and surfaces become heightened.

And in the end, I just became comfortable in beauty in the not knowing, which was the best outcome.

Ever!

Ruby: What are your goals and career plans for the coming year?

Carolyn: Now, there seems to be a lot of opportunities that have surfaced due to The Ambience Store Project 009 - Inbloom.

I have a course I have designed offered by the Brisbane Institute of Art, called 2D to 3D- Studio, which offers students the opportunity to learn techniques that I have developed and have been taught to me and to develop their relationship between their drawing practice and a three-dimensional language.

Toward the end of March, I will be involved in an exhibition at the QLD Science Centre, facilitated by Sally McRae and curated by Carrie McCarthy. This is something I am greatly looking forward to.

I have a major painting commission 2.5x1.2mts due for completion in April.

At the end of October there will be opening of a solo show with Anthea Polson Art -www.antheapolsonart.com.au

And in-between working full time, I will be actively pursuing proposals for callouts, awards, group exhibitions and gallery submissions. So, the usual yearly cycle of events.

And there is the hope of a well-earned overseas trip at the end of the year, scouting and scoping for more possibilities.  

Sweet Chariot is Simryn Gill’s first exhibition in three years after her exhibition Here Art Grows on Trees at the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013. The exhibition was held at Griffith University Art Gallery on South Bank. Drinks were not allowed into the gallery space because of the wood prints on paper being exhibited with her photography pieces. The walls of the gallery had been painted a cool dull blue and this really emphasised the sombre emotion of the dark black and white photographs as well as the crispness of the prints. The prints were made using timber pieces on pages from books about maritime information and such. This was a beautiful contrast next to the intense photographs of the seascapes and ships taken from the Strait of Malacca on a fishing boat. The works are hung all around the gallery space, with the horizon line of each photograph and intersection point of prints aligned, completely enveloping the viewer into subject matter of the work. This aspect of the exhibition, curated by Naomi Evans, was one of the most impressive visual elements. The viewer initially is made to wonder why each piece is hung at different levels then having an ultimate and more observing look at the entire space, the horizon line created within the space is experienced. 

This workshop, hosted by Anne Marshal, invites artists to showcase their art which embody the general theme of feminism; highlighting issues within feminism such as gender, race, body, identity, ethnicity and class. With a larger demographic being explored under the theme of feminism, this workshop allows for a variety of interpretations of different issues in contemporary Australia and the art world within it. Artists such as Karike Ashworth, Catherine or Kate, Courtney Coombs and Naomi Blacklock showcased their work in this workshop. Majority of the art that these artists showcased were extremely confronting performance art pieces. A theme that was significantly prevalent in all these artworks was the notion of “the other” and how the artists, through attempting to explore themselves and their individual identity, they discovered “the other” within themselves 

Karike Ashworth spoke about her work regarding her personal struggles with fertility and showed us photographs of her performance art work, Home of the Brave held at The Laundry. She had created an army of 28 women and carefully positioned baby monitors at The Laundry that responded to her as the drill sergeant. She also showcased her other works such as Brave Girl and other items of clothing she made which were embroidered with thread dyed with her menstrual blood. 

Catherine or Kate are a multidisciplinary artist duo who made finalists in the Churchie Emerging Art Prize this year. The majority of their work consists of challenging each other and these challenges being depicted in video work. Survey is a performance art piece where the artists surveyed people from different gas stations with the question “Who is better looking?”

Courtney Coombs is an artist currently undertaking her PhDs. She showed us a video work where she slaps herself for ten minutes, in an attempt to force out the heteronormative standards ingrained within herself since the beginning of her life. She spoke about how each individual is “the other” and that she aims to create a space for every different type of individual to come together with acceptance of each other and work as a collective to create positivity and inspire each other. 

Naomi Blacklock focuses on video and sound in her art practice. She spoke about how in a performance art piece, she bathed in milk and honey to cleanse her mind, body and soul. This is a traditional cleansing method in India, however, people interpreted this art completely wrong, that she was attempting to lighten her skin or become caucasian. This enraged her and she created a work called Soiled where she was circled with dirt and she screams out her frustrations into a microphone. She presented us her artwork which explores mysticism an witchcraft and how a witch is depicted as either old and ugly or young and beautiful, similar to how the women is subject to the madonna/whore dichotomy. She explains how in Indian culture, even in present day, women are killed for being called a witch and how she is unable to fit into Indian culture nor completely fit into Australian culture. Because of this, as opposed to using traditional Indian rituals or other rituals of witchcraft, she decided to invent her own as the basis of her art practice. 

The Churchie National Emerging Art Prize was established in 1987, initially at the Church Grammer Anglican College which then grew into the prestigious prize it is now. The finalists’ works are selected panel of three; Vicky Leighton, the Head of Art at Churchie, Daniel McKewen, artist, and Vanessa Van Ooyen, Senior Curator at QUT Art museum and the winner was selected by Kelly Gellatly, the director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art at University of Melbourne. The prize of $15,000 is non-acquisitive and sponsored by Brand+Slater Architects. This year, the Churchie uses a new model where applicants propose their ideas and these concepts are developed with assistance from the Churchie curator within the context of the Churchie Art Prize and QUT Art Museum. The exhibition was curated so successfully, it had an organic flow to the way the works were arranged. The spatial organisation of the works enhanced the experience of each work as they were not crowded nor overwhelming to the audience.

The Curator of Public Programmes at QUT, Megan Williams, hosted an insightful tour of the exhibition and discussed some issues such as nepotism and censorship. Since it is a single judge that selects the winner of the prize, it may be subject to extreme nepotism and bias. Dean Cross’s series PolyAustralis was found controversial by QUT and the gallery had to mediate discourses between the artist and QUT about this issue. It raises the question about whether or not art should be censored based on the principles of the institution the exhibition takes place in. Dean Cross uses images taken from the book Australia (2001) by Polly Borland. According to Borland, the book was meant to encapsulate the diverse mix of culture in Australia, however Cross was only able to find images of caucasian people until the last page which had an image of an indigenous poet. It is the portrait of Nick Cave who’s shirt said “Suck My Dick” that sparked the controversy even though one of the images was of an infamous sex offender who was part of the Anglican Church. Ultimately the piece was not censored, it was decided that artists should be entitled to show their work in a contemporary art prize without their work being censored.

Dean Cross PolyAustralis #26 (Sir Les Patterson), PolyAustralis #29 (Rolf Harris), PolyAustralis #19 (Cate Blanchett), PolyAustralis #16 (Nick Cave) (2016)

Sara Morawetz How the Stars Stand 2015

The winner of the Churchie Prize is Sara Morawetz’s performance art piece How the Stars Stand (2015). She spent 37 days living in accordance to Mars time, photographing herself at the same time each day. A day in Mars is 2.7% longer than a day on Earth. She also wrote to NASA and receipts from these consultations are also used in this piece. This is such an interesting piece because it brings up the conversation of how time is a man made construct that humanity depends on and adheres to and that it is also simply caused by the orbiting of a planet. 

Lisa Sammut For the Time Being 2015-16 Time was a theme prevalently visible in almost all of the works at the exhibition. This work depicts time in a variety of unique ways. One piece has a stone orbiting around a moon, another is a group of wood pieces print on them with their rings showing. Each ring on a tree cut cross sectionally is a year that the tree has been alive for.

Leo Coyte Mystic Misfits 2015 This piece caught my eye the most and I felt as though I was able to relate to it. I felt completely engulfed by each of these striking images. Coyte expresses and explores his teenage memories and anxieties with this work. The bright and attracting imagery, upon a closer inspection, incites a darker sort of excitement. 

A Chat with Reuben Keenan, the Curator at GOMA

Time of Others is an exhibition created by four different art museums who work to intertwine different cultures through an aspect common to the human experience: Time. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, The National Museum of Art in Osaka, Singapore Art Museum and QAGOMA began collaborating on this project since 2014 before the exhibition began in 2015, exhibiting in Osaka, Tokyo and Singapore before its final exhibition in Brisbane. The exhibition ultimately featured 25 artists who dropped in and out due to mostly practical reasons such as the changing venues. At QAGOMA it is 20 of these 25 artist who’s works are featured. While some of the works are from collections of these museums, curators also invited other artists to join this exhibition. The GOMA curator, Reuben Keenan, explained that this is a wonderful opportunity for museums to add to their collections and that a lot of these new artists’ works had been picked up by these museums already.

Reuben explained how this exhibition came to be from its birth until the final exhibition at GOMA. The idea was initiated by the curator of the Museum of Contemporary art in Tokyo, who wanted an exhibition showcasing that region and socio-political issues from a non authoritative narrative and decided that a collaboration of museums would be the best fit. Working in different sized spaces is always a challenge, in GOMA it is basically a huge pavilion so rooms are refitted for each exhibition. The problem with the pavilion having hardwood floors and high ceilings is sound-bleed. Most of the video works have headphones and in the rooms made for large scale video works, they often have a ceiling built over them. The venue in Singapore worked well as it had little rooms and each part of the exhibition was displayed within a room. In Japan, the funding for the museum is not viable as it is in Australia, therefore they need to raise these funds with ticketing. Usually a pop culture exhibition is held simultaneously to raise the funds as well as attract people to the museum. While museums do loan their collections, it is usually to prioritised to high institutions, therefore loaning collections as GOMA is simple. He also happily told us about how although in some countries they visited to collect art from the people might not have travelled much outside the countries but how they are all extremely aware of everything going on in the outside world. This was beneficial as it eliminated politics within this situation and made organising fairly simple. Reuben, personally, prefers holding an exhibition last so he can identify the errors and what could have been improved while museums do generally like having an exhibition first.

Three works from different institutions involved in this exhibition.

Disappearing Landscape - Passing II. 2008 Yuan Goang Ming, Taiwan Three Channel HD Video Installation Purchased by Queensland Art Gallery

Calendars (2020-2096). 2004-2010. Heman Chong, Singapore 1,001 Offset Prints with Matte Lamination Singapore Art Museum

May 12, 1980.  1980. June 23, 1980.  1980. Collection National Museum of Art, Osaka April 8, 1981. 1981. November 21, 1985. 1985. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo On Kawara, Japan/United States Acrylic on Canvas

Judging by merely these three works I suppose you can say that different institutes collect different works. However judging the exhibition as a whole and seeing how most works were collected by either QAGOMA or Singapore Art Museum it is likely that these two institutes collect similar types of works.

The type of work and the viewer’s liking of the work is a significant influence on what they think of the display strategies. If the viewer feels that the installation is successful or if they like it, then usually, they feel as though how it was set up and how it was displayed was successful as well.

Disappearing Landscape - Passing II had the most successful display, in my opinion. It was displayed in a black room with three extremely large screens. Sitting on the benches it felt as if you were a mere insect floating on something the river was carrying. Because of the size and the angles the screens were placed at, it felt extremely realistic, you could look at one spot but things were still happening around you that you could see from the corners of your eyes as if you were actually experiencing this firsthand. I really enjoyed this installation, it made me feel small and reminded me of my own awareness. 

Calendars (2020-2096) was also displayed quite successfully. It was displayed in a semi-enclosed space in the middle of the pavilion. It really was the centre of attention; it was such a bright and alluring mosaic of pictures. The perfectly aligned images allowed your eyes to run row by row. The space was extremely inviting and once I had a closer look, I started feeling as though these were spaces I had been in an as well throughout my travels in Asia. I noticed that most of these were photographed with no people in it, and in my opinion it enhances the experience of this installation because the viewer is a single person who is experiencing each picture individually and all at once. These are spaces that are usually overlooked but photographed and used in an installation like this really reminds the viewer of how interesting the banal may be.

May 12, 1980, June 23, 1980, April 8, 1981, November 21, 1985 was one of the installations I found least exciting. I was not attracted to it or attracted to inspect this work upon first seeing it. I did however admire its aesthetic; the crispness created by black against white as well as how minimal it was. 

Hall of Mirrors: Asia Pacific Report 2011 by Bruce Queck is also an extremely successfully displayed installation. Three walls of a semi-enclosed space is lined with minimal styled clocks. At the start of the installation is a small table with a machine that prints you a barcode to be carried around during the the viewer’s time in the installation space. Each clock ticks at different speeds and upon close inspection you see the white on white print on the face of each clock stating a social or ecological issues, for example; death by stroke or rape. This is such a thought-provoking installation as these statistics would merely be statistics and not something the viewer is made to actively think about. At the end of the space is another little table at which you scan your barcode for a receipt that lists all the these issues that have taken place during your time within the space. (See pictures attached below)

“Common Assembly: Deterritorializing the Palestine Parliament” by Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency (DAAR) is a representation of the takeover of Palestine by Israel and the installation is as dark as the situation itself. An aesthetically minimal and crisp black pathway, leads to a black room with the pathway transforming into a staircase that leads to a dead end, a wall. Beyond this are two screens placed slightly angled towards each other. One screened “Common Assembly”, an ongoing cleaning of the Jerusalem border line which was found in the ruins of the Palestinian parliament building, a building which was never completed due to the occupation. The mesmerising rhythms of the brooms that clean the border line were juxtaposed by “Assembling Voices”, conversations of people who spoke about the events that occurred in Palestine. These conversations were documented during a symposium in the parliament of Abu Dies where these figures expressed the backstory behind the divided parliament. The artists’ work isolated the viewer within the black room and with a stairway that lead to nothing, forcing the viewer within the same isolation and conflict experienced by a Palestinian under the Israeli occupation. This also put focus on the screens and overall enforcing an extremely strong message about the radical occupation of Palestine. Even the text in the didactic for this installation is arranged disorderly, with different pieces of text angled or lines of texts disarrayed. This further emphasises the derangement of the borderlines of Palestine due to the occupation. The situation in Palestine is overlooked and receives barely any media coverage. DAAR brings attention to this destruction of a people and culture and forces the viewer within the experience in order to bring awareness to the occupation using this political piece.

Reformation by Megan Cope, an Quandamooka woman from North Stradbroke island, is an installation piece with two different coloured piles of sand sit with middens laid atop them. The white sand had middens made from crushed beer cans and the black sand had middens created with cast concrete. The beer cans were luminous and attractive, this is successful as it caused the viewer to spend more time observing it and this is quite successful as with more inspection the viewer realises that the middens formed the Australian flag. Midden sites are sacred Aboriginal sites made of shells, middens and bones. The two types of sand are from North Stradbroke Island. This piece is a comment on how on North Stradbroke Island, one of the last remaining midden sites had been bulldozed to build a surf club and how middens are destroyed to create lime for concrete for building developments. As an act of irony, Cope creates one group of middens with concrete. It took 880 hours to concrete-cast these middens and the work was created during a time a newspaper stated “Aboriginals Too Lazy.” It is interesting how Cope forms the Australian flag with middens made of beer cans, depicting how Aboriginal culture and heritage was basically crushed and demolished to form a new white Australian culture of alcoholism or beer drinking. The work is subtle in how it presents this message, however, it is a strong message that is being conveyed. Cope invokes the conflict in the viewer about what the cost of “development” is and if destroying indigenous culture is worth this “development.”