Being in lockdown for most of last year, was a time for dreaming. We dreamt of gatherings and conversations, groups of laughing friends and face to face discussions. Well, the lockdowns may not quite be over, but at least we are now allowed to hold an event that was planned in the midst of last year’s trials.
IN THE FLESH is an exhibition featuring twenty-five artists and focuses on the lives we lived, and the work we made during that memorable time. It centres around 40 photographs that come from disposable cameras, that were sent out 20 “creative” households during lockdown. The images were selected to portray a time of solitude, domesticity, contemplation and frustration. There is an overarching peacefulness and lack of artifice that comes from photographing on uneditable analogue film.
Planning
These photographs are supported by works from three generations of the same family, also created during last year. Judith Chew painted a series of 17 intricately adorned dead eyed mannequins along with two other oil paintings that reveal a little her state of mind living alone during this time. Mark Chew has installed a six meter by three meter paste up created from imagery made during his daily walks around the postcode in which he was confined.
Film makers, Archie Chew and Alicia Easaw-Mamutil, have documented a collection of stories from lockdown, told from Melbourne’s front porches. This intertwined narrative will be screened on a continuous loop during the exhibition.
Paste Up, Mock Up
More Planning.
Add to this a music and poetry performances, food from the Melbourne Farmers Markets, beer from Young Henrys and wine from Minimum, and it promises to be an enriching evening.
Landon Abbott at Melbourne’s foremost digital art printing establishment SMLXL has been extraordinarily generous in supporting the exhibition, and the PACE Development Group has continuously astounded us with there generosity and professionalism in letting us use the space.
It’s a free event, but for Covid reasons you need to BOOK for the Opening night as places are limited. Hope to see you there IN THE FLESH
