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Waste
Not is an exhibition that investigates themes of
landscape, composition and narrative. Each artist draws
on raw material, waste to some, and transforms its context
and meaning into a sculptural piece of art. Edwards,
McDonald and Nowlan are mid-career artists; Melbourne
artists Nowlan has just returned from a residency at
Hill End, Edwards has recently exhibited at the Visual
Arts Centre Gallery, La Trobe University, Bendigo, while
Townsville artist McDonald is currently teaching sculpture
at James Cook University.
In our daily lives, each of us is aware of the endless
stream of waste the flows deep and wide from each Australian
home and workplace. Waste Not is about taking a raw
material that has already lived and, through art, recycling
it into a positive medium.
This exhibition aims to give new meaning and context
to discarded objects, commenting in the process on issues
relating to our excessive consumption.
Mary-Louise Edwards continues her conversation
with discarded materials and found objects from everyday
life. She plays with states of dislocation between city
dwellers and a contemporary experience of land and ground
while investigating a tension that develops between
the precision of the assemblage and a presumed randomness.
Alison McDonald creates work in response to the
environmental devastation caused by the building of
new houses, "the area of land was completely bulldozed
in order to build new houses, leaving not a single native
tree", says McDonald. Her leaf forms are created from
rusty nails inviting the viewer to consider why the
art forms are made of this chosen material.
Annabel Nowlan's works employ a variety of textural
surfaces and found materials rather than formal images
in order to illuminate, not illustrate, registrations
of place and experience. Her attention is drawn towards
the evidence of human activity in the landscape: of
repetitious routines, of unique signage and the patina
of history, essentially locating significance and notions
of beauty in what is often considered mundane.
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