Artist's Choice: Marian Drew - Buoyancy

Artist’s Choice: Marian Drew – Buoyancy

Queensland Art Gallery

1 July – 16 October 2011

One of Queensland’s most respected photographers, Marian Drew, has been invited to delve into Queensland Art Gallery’s vaults with the intention of curating an exhibition of her favourite works from the collection. Entitled Buoyancy, this is the Queensland Art Gallery’s second Artist Choice exhibition, and includes works that feature not only water in its many forms, but also the psychological and mythical associations humans attribute to this precious element.

Nearing the entrance to the exhibition space, my vista is dominated by Jill Barker’s piece Faultlines (1996), which appears as a cascading waterfall, spilling off the wall it is displayed from and over the flooring directly in front of the work. My first instinct is to make a beeline directly to the installation that intriguingly seems to dominate the entire wall it shares with other abstract works. However, upon entering the space, the periphery of my vision takes in two large colourful pieces to my left. The artwork responsible for my about turn is entitled Yawkyawk (Female water spirit)(Pregnant with twins) (2007), by Australian Indigenous artist Anniebell Marrngamarrnga, a Kuninjku woman from Maningrida, in western Central Arnhem Land. Depicting two ngalberddjenj (mermaid-like young female spirit beings), the work consists of two objects woven from pandanus that has been dyed using natural earth pigments. Traditionally, at night ngalberddjenj leave their aquatic homes to walk about on dry land, embodying the buoyancy theme of being, at once, in and out of water. Notably the work is hung relatively high on the wall, requiring a viewer to peer upward at the creation, assigning reverence to the work and highlighting its place as something sacred. Yawkyawk blows me away and is, in my view, the most striking work in the collection.

Drew has intentionally allowed each of the four walls to exist as separate spaces within the exhibition, housing an extremely eclectic mix of art ranging from historical to contemporary, and including sculptural installations, photography, paintings, drawn sketches, ceramics and video. The wall spaces can be roughly categorized into four distinct zones. The most varied grouping is an Indigenous area that holds paintings, ceramic vessels, traditional weavings and sculptures. Second is an Abstract space, consisting of works that have a blue-green hue and have more contemporary nature. A Minimalist aesthetic is achieved through the inclusion of monochromatic works in the next zone. Finally, a Traditional space holds twenty-one gilt-framed watercolour and oil paintings, hung salon-style beside a large, somber seascape photograph by Bill Henson.

As I take in Faultlines at a closer range I begin to understand how each piece aligns itself to the buoyancy theme through its juxtaposition with neighboring works. Repeated throughout the exhibition is an aesthetic that embraces the reaction of water to an object. The same ripples and waves-like forms that appear in the fine linear work present in Faultlines, are also visible in the black and white photographs of Eiichi Tanaka, in the sides of ceramic vases, and in a forty-four gallon drum suspended within a ladder that consists the sculptural installation of Roman Signer. The whale bone curve evident in Gabriel Orozco’s Double Tail (2003), is as clearly repeated in Montien Boonma’s work on paper Sketches for ‘a hanging breast’ (1992), as it is in the painting A south sea whale chase (1885) by Oswarl Walters Brierly. By highlighting the element of water and its quality of buoyancy as the commonality present within the collection, Drew cuts through the traditional categorizations, instead, allowing the audience to develop their own understanding and subsequent appreciation of art.

Eryn Begley