Fragile and contemplative, Situational is a record of artist Kath Fries’ four-week residence at the Bundanon property. Gifted by the Boyd family, The Bundanon Trust is a thriving arts centre, promoting the interaction between visual artists and the bushland that surrounds it.
An exhibition of installation, sculpture, photography and video, Fries leads us through her process of observation and distillation of the local landscape: of thistledown, kangaroo fur, and fencing wire. Found objects contrast against the natural bushland, local wildlife, and human endeavour; Fries’ work echoes the principles of arte povera, a 1960s movement, which encouraged the use of everyday objects in art.
Thistledown, the silky feather-like fibre of a thistle seed, captured against soft window light, looking out onto the countryside, the wooden fence post and the man-made wire. The memory of passing a kangaroo, moss crowned branches, fence paling, twine. A tree stump with its army of termites. Fries’ collection of found objects captures and releases the essence of the ephemeral, of impermanence.
Her use of thistledown draws on Fries’ prior work with dandelion seeds, leaves, hair, netting and natural fibre. In Situational, thistledown is the star of the show. It features in all of the photographs, as well as the installation piece Insinuate, and the title work, a video production. Printed on cotton rag, Drifters I and Drifters II are set on a windowsill, against the light. In Threaded Thistledown, the string of thistledown is loosely moving in the wind, or so we imagine, against a window overlooking the property in the distance. A moment of country ennui, or our own sentimentality around the idea of country stillness.
Fries’ uses of contre-jour is utilised in the presentation of her Horizons I-IV sculptures: thumb-size pieces of found wood, set against a narrow frame and looking out against the milky whiteness of dimmed gallery windows and shadows of street wire fencing.
The entrance to the gallery is marked by wire sculptures and the presence of wood: discarded oxidised wire fencing woven with felt and kangaroo fur in Spring Scramble I and Spring Scramble II; and a solitary branch atop a fence paling in Pause.
The works feel dwarfed by the gallery; Chrissie Cotter Gallery is not a large space and the exhibition could have benefited from a different presentation, it left one feeling the empty spaces. The Horizons wooden sculptures are thoughtfully set, however, the gaps in the paper sheets covering the windows make themselves painfully present. Undoubtedly, there are difficult corners in the gallery; Insinuate, the thistledown installation piece, seems to feel it most profoundly, tucked in the corner by the broom closet.
Kath Fries – Situational
Presented in association with Bundanon Trust, Art Month Sydney, International Women’s Day and Marickville Open Studio Trail (MOST)
Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Camperdown
7 – 17 March
