Tracing Materiality - group exhibition

Tracing Materiality invitation, image: Renuka Fernando, Folded, 2015

Tracing Materiality is a project and exhibition by Sydney based artists Renuka Fernando, Kath Fries and Gillian Lavery, exploring expanded drawing practices that move beyond drawing as representation to focus on materiality and mark making. The artists’ process-based approaches are open-ended, improvisational and unfolding within the gallery over the exhibition’s duration. This allows the inner workings and fluid nature of art practice to be visible to the audience. Tracing Materiality will emphasise the creative process above the end result by engaging meditative but not premeditated forms, transforming the gallery into an active environment where thinking, making and play are accessible to the viewer. Working throughout the gallery space, utilizing the various surfaces of the walls, floors, windows and corners, the artists’ work will develop and evolve resulting in a survey of different mark making approaches of expanded drawing and process-based practices.

Kath Fries, Beeswax on paper - translucency, studio experiment 2015

For this exhibition I'll be exploring tactile and sensory engagements with materiality, and how embodied processes can conjure attentiveness to present time. Working with beeswax and paper, using scratching translucencies, drips, changing natural light and the beeswax’s aromatic presence, I'll respond to pre-existing features of the space. These installations will combine site sensitivity with the tactility and mutability of beeswax as a drawing material.

Tracing Materiality invitation, image: Gillian Lavery, Remaining, 2013

The works will develop and change during the exhibition, so repeat visits are encouraged. You can watch how the works evolve online, and everyone is invited to return on the final day to see how the works have grown and discuss the process with the artists by joining the Finissage discussion, chaired by Megan Robson, (Assistant Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia).

Tracing Materiality: 5 - 20 March 2016
Artists: Renuka Fernando, Kath Fries and Gillian Lavery

Exhibition opening and MOST artists' party: Sunday 6 March 6-8pm

Continuous drawing: Saturday 5 & Sunday 6 March from 2pm
Finissage discussion with Megan Robson: Sunday 20 March, 2pm
www.tracingmateriality.blogspot.com.au

Chrissie Cotter Gallery: Pidcock Street, Camperdown NSW
Gallery hours: Thursday to Sunday 11am - 4pm

Tracing Materiality is presented as part of Marrickville Open Studio Trail (MOST) and Art Month Sydney 2016