Scorch - solo exhibition @ galleryeight

Kath Fries, Scorch exhibition invitation front
Kath Fries
SCORCH
3 - 22 March 2012

Opening night drinks with the artist - Friday 2 March 6pm

Art Month Sydney Event - Sunday 11 March 3pm
Kath Fries in conversation with Megan Robson (Museum of Contemporary Art) and Peter Cramer (galleryeight), followed by complimentary craft beer tasting courtesy of the Lord Nelson Hotel.

galleryeight 
12 Argyle Place, Millers Point, Sydney NSW 2000

Open Tuesday to Sunday 12-6pm www.galleryeight.com.au

Scorch is an exhibition of sculptural installations reflecting on our human efforts to render permanent that which is impermanent. 

Kath Fries explores materiality, spatiality and archetypical narratives by marking a personal, immediate engagement with time, place and physicality. Her work links one’s present experience to boarder considerations of humanity, history and future continuation. The transience of existence and fragility of life are recurring themes throughout her practice.

For this exhibition Fries has cast magnolia branches in bronze and bound them with twine and charcoal to create intriguing assemblages of texture and form. These sculptural pieces suggest emotive narratives of our fallible human endeavours to hold together and immobilise moments of growth, decay and memory.

Kath Fries, Hold dear, 2011, bronze, nylon and charcoal.
Photograph courtesy of Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney


The largest installation in this exhibition is titled Hold dear, implying a reflection on the human grieving process and the challenge of letting go. Fries has created a bronze magnolia branch that protrudes out of the gallery wall. Black nylon netting is wrapped around the branch, stretching across the space to seemingly drag a mound of burnt wood along the floor. The strength of the branch, tension in the netting and dead weight of the charcoal infers a poetic commentary about our human struggles to resist natural cycles of aging and occurrence of death.

Kath Fries graduated from the University of Sydney with a Master of Visual Arts. She won the 2010 Japan Foundation New Artist Award and is a recipient of a 2011 ArtStart Grant from the Australia Council. 

Kath Fries, Scorch exhibition invitation, back

Kath Fries would like to thank Peter Cramer from galleryeight, Megan Robson from the MCA, NAVA and the NSW Artists Grant initiative, The Lord Nelson Hotel, Art Month Sydney, The Australia Council and the ArtStart Grant program, Crawford's Casting South Strathfield, Parramatta Artist Studios and Sydney College of the Arts for their assistance with with this project.

Kath Fries, Hold dear, 2011, bronze, nylon and charcoal.
Photograph courtesy of Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney