February 2015 6-28 February 2015

Level 1, 160 Cimitiere Street Launceston TAS 7250 www.sawtooth.org.au

FRONT GALLERY

Loin of Loam Mimi Kelly (NSW)

Loin of Loam is a duel channel video and photographic installation. The work is set in the lush natural setting of the New South Wales south coast river and bush landscape, and depicts a surreal coming together of two opposing female character types. Collectively the artwork works through a series of issues pertaining to gender representation, attraction and repulsion, fear and desire, and the external manifestation of internal pathologies.

Aligning conceptually with theories particular to both third wave feminism and queer theory, the project unashamedly embraces the dark realm of transgressive perversions, the allure of the grotesque, and the thrill of spectacle, beauty and affect. While somewhat ambiguous, the interaction between the two character types in the video is clearly one of hierarchy: dominance and submission. As the viewer is drawn further into the work, it becomes clear that the two women are one and the same (the artist). This split/twinning plays directly into concepts of individual identity/femininity as multifaceted, performative, shifting and contradictory. Just as importantly, this fragmentation also works metaphorically to represent those opposing facets of the human psyche unique to all of us – nurturer/destroyer, passive/aggressive – yet also the intricate symbiotic relationship that exists between these ‘oppositions’, and the ongoing way in which variants of this cycle manifests in our lives.

On a broader level, the active use of clearly defined character types functions as purposeful expression of the fascination that many female artists have with reified representations of femininity. Moreover, the way in which creative exploration of these functions not as a naïve playing into and perpetuating of such stereotypes, but a celebration of the multiple facets of woman’s identity and the paradox of pleasure and desire. Here, the body consequently works as a symbolic template for the interplay between cultural expressions of reality (the exogenous influences of society and culture on gender construction and categorization for instance) and the materialization of fantasy in all its disturbing glory.

Finally, the context the work has been created in has its own particular intent. Specifically, it seeks to acknowledge the complex, inexplicable yearning we have to loose ourselves to/in nature. On a more esoteric level, it further speaks of the desire we have to propel ourselves beyond our hermetically sealed selves to exist in a ‘continuous’ state of being in those truly mysterious moments of abandonment: sex and death.

HD duel channel video and photographic installation Cinematographer and photography: Dan Freene (video: 1 min 1 sec of 10 min 25 sec) Shot on location at Bundanon Trust, NSW

Image: Loin of Loam (2014) HD duel channel video. Production still (image detail): Dan Freene. Shot on location at Bundanon Trust, NSW.

February 2015 6-28 February 2015

Level 1, 160 Cimitiere Street Launceston TAS 7250 www.sawtooth.org.au

NEW MEDIA GALLERY

aXolotl's Happiness Diego Ramirez (MEXICO)

aXolotl’s Happiness is a single channel video revolving around the figure of an anthropomorphic axolotl

performing banal domestic activities. The work draws upon Julio Cortazar’s short story Axolotl (1952), a

Kafkian narrative about a man that transforms into an axolotl.

http://www.diego-ramirez.net/

Image: aXolotl's Happiness (2014) HD Video. Courtesy of the artist and [MARS] Gallery

February 2015 6-28 February 2015

Level 1, 160 Cimitiere Street Launceston TAS 7250 www.sawtooth.org.au

MIDDLE GALLERY

Inscryption Chris Morgan (TAS)

This work continues my photographic pursuit of the shadow world - of forms emanating from shadows

that are privileged by light - forms and textures that build an essence of place from a basis of pure

abstraction.

Embedded within a landscape of tree trunks lie visual cues to the character of place - of life and the

relationship between living and lived organic forms. Thickly trunked and stunted trees that have existed

for centuries - emanating from seed - become scarred, textured and torn through biological,

environmental and human incursion. Ancient graffiti from these sources form into figurines and create a

cinematic rendition of character, of history and of culture.

The graffiti seem to bear messages from past personages who have in some way touched, scarred or

stained the surface of the trees. A remnant is here now – preserved in an enlivened photographic and

digital form.

Image: Grounded (2014) digital photo imaging

February 2015 6-28 February 2015

Level 1, 160 Cimitiere Street Launceston TAS 7250 www.sawtooth.org.au

PROJECT GALLERY

The Body In Crisis Jessica Eastburn (TAS)

An Exploration of Gesture and Emotion through Figurative Representation

The body in crisis is a visual exploration centred on the human figure being used to explore emotional and

psychological states associated with being human. The investigation into these complex states was

motivated by questions surrounding what it means to comprehend and experience the world in a rapidly

accelerating technological environment. Drawing from a variety of emotional and psychological states and

their associated qualities and tone, the project sought to develop techniques and strategies. Fragilities,

vulnerabilities, anguish and pain, joy and exuberance, were explored alongside more ambiguous states

such as closure, ambivalence, the relinquishing body, aggression, and compliance. These create a dynamic

palette with which to work and explore.

The body in free fall, the body in space became the primary metaphor to express emotion and gesture.

The key challenge here was creating a method of drawing and painting suitable to express the ‘The Body

in Crisis’ or more accurately the struggle of the figure, while maintaining expressive warmth through

gestural mark making which I connect to a personal sense of what it is to be human. Throughout the

investigation the idea of crisis was used as a vehicle to negotiate the myriad of questions concerning the

body in the contemporary era and the struggle to assert itself amongst the noise of the modern

environment.

Throughout the course of the project painting and drawing were explored to create dynamic grounds and

figure studies focusing on the falling figure, digital media was then also explored. The convergent

potential of digital media became a platform for bringing together the diverse range of mark making

techniques from the painting and drawing experiments, in an attempt to create a living environment,

where the figure is no longer isolated but competing with the landscape struggling to assert itself and

emphasizing the crisis of the figures, some pieces merely suggestive of the figure without the need to

include the drawn body.

Image: Untitled (2014) ink, graphite print

February 2015 6-28 February 2015

Level 1, 160 Cimitiere Street Launceston TAS 7250 www.sawtooth.org.au

@SAWTOOTH POP-UP #EXHIBITION

Bag(h)dad Aaron Claringbold (VIC)

42°37′S 147°13′E

33°20′00″N 44°26′00″E

Shot in and around the town of Bagdad, Tasmania, this collection of photographs explores ideas of cultural constructions, distance, isolation, responsibility and conflict in a modern Australian setting.

As Australians we are far removed from much of the world, from western imperial policies, actions and perhaps most importantly outcomes. Here conflict is obscured. In this sense we serve as an experiment; what one group of people can be convinced to do to another if the distance between them is great and the understanding small and distorted.

This concept does not negate the situation at home, but the reality is that ‘settlement’ was predominantly successful. Those who are left are seen through years of misinformation, false interpretation and guilt, if seen at all. With regard to western imperialism, it should be reasonably understood that when land is at stake any situation can be made to seem a battle.

When there is no immediate land at stake, rather only specific interest, then some time and energy has to go in to controlling ways of seeing and communicating. Concerning shaping what is understood, a significant effort must be undertaken to coerce.

Catalogues are available for purchase $10 Image: Conflict, Bag(h)dad (2014) giclée print

February 2015 6-28 February 2015

Level 1, 160 Cimitiere Street Launceston TAS 7250 www.sawtooth.org.au