Touring exhibition details parallel universes at TRAG display
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POSTWORLD, a touring exhibition that features Australian artists who create parallel universes, will be displayed at Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery until October 20, 2024.
The national touring exhibition is co-curated by Kate O’Hara and Daniel Qualischefski of Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Townsville, commissioned by the North Australian Festival of Arts (NFA) and toured by Museums & Galleries Queensland.
Audiences are invited into the playful, sublime, poetic and cautionary themes in the exhibition. Drawing on the detritus of human experience, these worlds have their own internal languages existing in alternate time and space.
Co-curators Kate O’Hara and Daniel Qualischefski said: “The exhibition came into consciousness when artist Ron McBurnie brought a small, handmade red box into Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts. Inside was a world created by three friends by postal collaboration over more than 10 years.
“Through over 70 works on paper, the artists have been creating a language of hieroglyphics to express an astral travel saga resonant with humour, dread, panic and joy. The world is cumulative and inflected with the changing socio environmental context of the world around them over the last decade. They have been constantly shifting and adapting each other’s work to find or even make meaning.
“Prior to this, POSTWORLD, as a curatorial premise, existed in the subconscious as noise, confusion, and fear, alongside sparks of hope, images of the past, present and future - at times bleak, at times beautiful.”
As the show was built, each artist’s work expanded on this thematic provocation, finding pathways to comfort, resistant to the overwhelming sense of panic. Stillness, awe and appreciation resonated, honouring the world beyond its utility to provide resources for consumption in the Anthropocene.
New fictions (and possible futures) are rendered, providing alternate perspectives on the environment, gender and capitalist hegemony.
Join us at 5.30pm on Friday, August 23, 2024 for the openings of the POSTWORLD, Time of the Signs by Henri van Noordenburg and Carnival Queens exhibitions.
Everyone is welcome to attend the free event and bookings are required by calling 131 872 or emailing [email protected] Please RSVP by Wednesday, August 21.
A free Cosmic Witness Collaboration Workshop will be held on Sunday, August 25.
This creative and experimental workshop provides insight into the collaborative process employed by POSTWORLD exhibiting artists Ron McBurnie, Catherine Parker and Stephen Spurrier.
Facilitated by Catherine and Stephen, Cosmic Witness artists, participants will have the chance to collaborate with the exhibition artists to make new worlds on paper. Working in small groups, participants will work across different medium stations including painting, screen-printing, drawing and collage.
Participants are advised to bring collage materials and all other materials will be supplied. The session is suitable for teens and adults. Bookings are essential by calling 131 872.
For more information, please see: https://events.tr.qld.gov.au/events-by-category/exhibition/121006/exhibition-postworld
Artists: Alison Bennett (Victoria), Neil Binnie (Queensland), Keith Deverell (Blue Screen of Death) (Tasmania), Gail Mabo (Queensland), Ron McBurnie (Queensland), Jenny Mulcahy (Queensland), Catherine Parker (Queensland), David Rowe (Queensland), Jason Sims (South Australia), Stephen Spurrier (Queensland), Rhonda Stevens (Queensland).
Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery at 531 Ruthven Street, Toowoomba, is open Wednesday to Sunday 10.30am – 3.30pm. Additional Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers open times: Wednesday, September 11 to Sunday, September 29: Gallery open daily 10.30am – 3.30pm. Entry is free.
Images: Download via: https://spaces.hightail.com/space/sKTVAHxoJ5
Images: 1. Ron MCBURNIE, Catherine PARKER and Stephen SPURRIER / The ghosts sleep beneath our feet and dance above our heads (detail), (from the Cosmic Witness series) 2020-22 (detail) / ink, acrylic paint, paint pens, pencil, watercolour and gold leaf / 42 x 29cm
2. Alison BENNETT / vegetal / digital (Waratah) 2021 / still of photogrammetry pointcloud (below)