Kath Fries Studio: March 2018

My new work Enclose is currently being exhibited in Extreme Prejudice, curated by Nike Savvas for the 2018 Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize at National Art School Gallery.

Kath Fries, Enclose, 2018, oyster mushrooms, beeswax and glass terrariums, 170x170x15cm

Enclose is a continuation of my work with oyster mushrooms and beeswax, exploring how our senses are entangled with our material and immaterial surroundings. This wall sculpture is an attentive meditation that conjures ecological interconnections, specifically the complexities of human and nonhuman relationships. The dried oyster mushrooms in Enclose are ones that I have grown in previous installations. Mushrooms spring up rapidly – almost overnight – but these fascinating forms are actually just a small section of a much larger mycelium network, usually underground, hidden from human sight. Enclose considers our human habits of discrimination and valuing things only as separate entities, so the isolation of these fungi specimens belies how they really exist in the world. Yet the circular clock-like arrangement also suggests the passage of time, underlying cycles and bio-diverse connections. Enclose resonates with material metaphors that operate in several directions, drawing attention to the unique differences of each specimen and asserting that nothing can exist or evolve in isolation.

Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize 2018

Exhibition Dates: Thursday 15 March — Saturday 12 May 2018

Opening & Prize Announcement: Wednesday 21 March, 6pm

National Art School Gallery, Forbes Street, Darlinghust NSW

Opening Hours: Monday–Saturday, 11am–5pm

nas.edu.au/place/gallery/current-exhibition

Guest curator Nike Savvas invited 19 established artists who each nominated an early career artist to participate in this exhibition. This inter-generational pairing reflects the generative mentoring relationships in our artistic communities. Nike Savvas: “I have selected artists whose practices evidence discriminating, uncompromising and highly individualist approaches to art making. In a cultural climate beset by hype, hits, corporatisation and swinging social agency, the next iteration of this exhibition titled Extreme Prejudice seeks to highlight the personal and critical imperatives that belie and drive such single-minded work.”

Artists:

Richard Bell & Megan Cope

Vivienne Binns OAM & Jacob Potter

Vicente Butron & Gemma Avery

Richard Dunn & Adrian McDonald

Sarah Goffman & Connie Anthes

Agatha Gothe-Snape & Aodhan Madden

Gail Hastings & Dan McCabe

Tim Johnson & Hayley Megan French

Lindy Lee & Kath Fries

Stephen Little & Joe Wilson and Chanelle Collier

Jonny Niesche & Mason Kimber

John Nixon & Lucina Lane

Rose Nolan & Renee Cosgrave

Kerrie Poliness & Melissa Deerson

Elizabeth Pulie & Zoe Marni-Robertson

Huseyin Sami & Consuelo Cavaniglia

David Serisier & Oliver Wagner

Jenny Watson & Annie O’Rourke

Hilarie Mais & Conor O’Shea

This work engages with tactile material metaphors and layered local historical narratives pertaining to the colour red. Used for colouring fabric and cosmetics red, cochineal dye is traditionally made from macerated cochineal beetles, native to Mexico, who live solely on prickly pear cactus leaves. In colonial times the British aspired to set up a cochineal industry in Sydney, sending cochineal beetles and prickly pear cactuses with the First Fleet in 1788. However synthetic dyes soon replaced the insect-sourced pigment and value plummeted. Yet the prickly pear cactus thrived here and choked thousands of hectares of farmland. The plant seemed utterly impossible to eradicate, until 1926 when an Argentinian moth, Cactoblastis cactorum, was introduced as a method of biological control. Unlike the more infamous cane toad, the cactus moth delivered a remarkable biocontrol success story, almost completely eradicating the prickly pear cactus. Today the naïve colonial directive, which disastrously introduced this plant and seeded one of the world’s great biological invasions, is merely a forgotten historical stain.

The prickly pear cactus leaves in my Cochineal installation have been burnt with melted sealing wax stamps. The green plant cellulose is gradually turning brown and decaying around each seared branding, echoing the story of the bio-narratives of the cochineal beetle and cactoblastis moth consuming the cactus.

Kath Fries, Cochineal, 2018, prickly pear cactus, red sealing wax and wire
in historic underground chamber (detail view)

THE RED PROJECT

3 - 18 March 2018

The Coal Loader Tunnel and Chambers

2 Balls Head Drive, Waverton NSW

Open daily 10am – 5pm

Artists talks: 11am Saturday 17 March

ARTISTS: Jessica Birk, Gloria Florez, Kath Fries, Tina Fox, Nathalie Hartog Gautier, Nola Jones, Penelope Lee, Debbie Mackinnon, Michele Morcos, Virginia Moorfield, Ingrid Morley, Anne Numont, Denese Oates, Meri Peach, Mandy Pryse-Jones, Tamsin Salehian, Alma Studholme, Helen Sturgess, Janet Tavener, Jane Theau, Alex Thorby, Ingrid van der Aa, Sandra Winkworth and Basia Zielinska.

Curator: Alison Clark

www.northsydney.nsw.gov.au/redproject