Friday, 14 October 2011

Madeline Kelly leaves her mark on viewers at Grifftith University Art Gallery


Weight of the world, 2011
from Hollow Mark online catalogue
Hollow Mark at Griffith University Art Gallery is Madeline Kelly’s latest body of work from a successful career that started at Queensland College of Art in 1999. The exhibition includes a light tunnel, several new paintings depicting lone and often distorted, dream-like figures as well as works in lightboxes, sailcloth and fiberglass resin and a wunderkammer of found objects that inspired the show (1).

One of the most striking works upon entry to Griffith University Art Gallery is Weight of the World. As two translucent fiberglass resin panels suspended from the ceiling, measuring three metres each, depict distorted images of a man carrying books. Although the atlas-like figures draw immediate attention, it is the books they carry that convey Kelly’s concern for the environment with titles such as ‘The end of nature’ and ‘Restoring the land’. This concern for nature, our natural resources and the struggle between man and nature has been an ongoing theme throughout Kelly’s work (1).

Ersceinen, 2010
Installation Shot
Continuing on with this concern is Ersceinen (to appear), a tunnel-like structure covered in foamcore which is illuminated from behind by spotlights in order to display pin-pricked, luminous scenes. Although it is unfortunate that the structure appears unfinished on the outside, it is forgotten as soon as one enters the tunnel to view scenes of man and nature, together and separately.



Stucture for Evermore, 2011
From the Hollow Mark online catalogue
As one leaves the tunnel they are met by Structure for Evermore, where sea sponges are suspended behind sailcloth and illuminated from behind by constantly moving lights. The arrangement of the sponges in the form of a lemniscate (the symbol for infinity) can be seen to refer to both the sponge being one of the oldest life-forms on the planet but also one supposes, to Kelly’s hope that nature will prevail and survive the onslaught of man forever. Meanwhile, Plastic Continuity, appears to depict a struggle between nature and man, as a lone girl appears to fight against a storm of nature in a large-scale dreamscape.

Kelly’s description of the exhibition as “interested in the interstices that arrive somewhere between a hollow and a mark; the perplexing arena where figures and half resolved forms, float out from and into” (1) is quite evident as Hollow Mark presents a mixture of myth and fact in an incandescent experience that draws viewers into Kelly’s surreal world.

Plastic Continuity, 2011
From the Hollow Mark online catalogue

By Jessica Row

Hollow Mark by Madeline Kelly is on display at Griffith University Art Gallery, 226 Grey St, South Brisbane, QLD, Australia, from 8 October – 13 November, 2011

(1) From Hollow Mark Exhibition Catalogue, published by Griffith Artworks, 2011. (which can be viewed online at: http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/360988/HOLLOW-MARK-Madeleine-Kelly-GUAG-Catalogue_low-res.pdf) 

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