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| Kath Fries, Strain, 2011, installation view Aqua-librium exhibition, Primrose Park Gallery Cremorne, December 2011 |
My new series of artworks, Strain, has been developed over the past six months during my studio residency at North Sydney Council's Primrose Park artist studio. These works will be exhibited in Aqua-librium: to find a point of balance using the flow of water, at Primrose Park Gallery Cremorne, 9 - 18 December 2011.
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| Kath Fries, Strain, 2011, installation view Aqua-librium exhibition, Primrose Park Gallery Cremorne, December 2011 |
Strain is a series of site-sensitive installations that playfully comment on the gradual cycle of destruction and rejuvenation in Primrose Park. Despite grandiose human attempts to control and order natural elements, tiny weeds can be found growing in the widening cracks of the 1891 sewage works structures. Their roots seek out the natural flow of water that continues to seep down into the harbour, regardless of hundred-year-old efforts to contain and divert the watercourse through concrete canals and aqueducts.
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| Kath Fries, Strain, 2011, installation view Aqua-librium exhibition, Primrose Park Gallery, Cremorne, December 2011 |
In the park, Strain is an intervention installation created from lengths of pantyhose stretched over the rough concrete surfaces to form contrasting textures. This sheer fabric ladders and tears like aging human skin, mimicking the cracks and ruptures across the heritage structures. Knotted and interlinked, disappearing and reappearing, the material leads the viewer around the site like a guiding thread; insinuating internal flows, movements and interconnections.
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| Kath Fries, Strain, 2011, installation view, Aqua-librium exhibition, Primrose Park, Cremorne, December 2011 |
In the gallery, Strain takes the form of sculptures that continue to stretch the pantyhose metaphor. These suspended fabric tubes support a collection of local weeds and objects to create small hanging gardens. Several are bursting at the seams with soaked water-saving crystals, much as the water flowing beneath the park's concrete facades gradually ruptures through to the surface.
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| Kath Fries, Hanging Garden, 2011, part of the Strain installation, Aqua-librium exhibition, Primrose Park Gallery Cremorne, December 2011 |
Kath Fries has a Masters of Visual Arts from the University of Sydney. She was awarded a 2011 ArtStart Grant from the Australia Council and won the 2010 Japan Foundation New Artist Award. The transience of existence and fragility of life are recurring themes throughout her art practice. Fries’ work explores materiality, spatiality and archetypical narratives by marking a personal, immediate engagement with time, place and physicality. She uses domestic materials and natural elements to create site-sensitive installations linking present experience to boarder considerations of humanity, history and future continuation.
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| Kath Fries, Slingshot rock gardens, 2011, part of the Strain installation, Aqua-librium exhibition, Primrose Park Gallery Cremorne, December 2011 |
Aqua-librium:
to find a point of balance using the flow of water
An exhibition
by
Kath Fries (installation) & Julie McConaghy (painting)
Exhibition opening: Friday 9 December, 5pm - 8pm
Artist talks: Sunday 18 December, 2pm
Open daily: 10 to 18 December, 2 - 6pm
Location: Primrose Park Gallery, Matora Lane (off Young Street), Cremorne, NSW
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| Kath Fries, Hanging garden and Strain process documentation photograph in background,Aqua-librium exhibition, Primrose Park Gallery Cremorne, December 2011 |
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