Exhibited as part of 'Sub-plots' exhibition with artists Mick O'Shea, Marianne Keating and Stephen Brandes at allerArt, Bludenz, Austria, 2011 and Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, 2012
In this work, ideas of distance and fragmented realities are explored, landscape becomes a site for the collapse of time and space through imagined and real connections between places.
This work was developed from research in Austria and Australia in 2010 and 2011. The work consisted of a painted mural with photographs, research material and text. The mural is a fragmented outline drawing of a painting by Eugene von Guérard painted onto the wall of the gallery. Guérard was an Austrian immigrant to Australia in the nineteenth century. He went to Australia to mine gold and ended up playing an important role in the development of the Australian art world as director of the art school and the art museum in Melbourne for more than thirty years. He was also an important painter in his own right, though his work is little known outside Australia.
The Travels of Eugen von Guérard
In November 1811 Johan Joseph Eugen von Guérard was born in Vienna. He studied at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf 1839-45 and departed for Victoria Australia 1852 from London to look for gold. Establishing himself as a painter in Melbourne in 1854, he sailed back to Europe in 1882 where he died in London in 1901.
'Sub-plots' was curated by Sarah iremonger, and included artists Stephen Brandes, Sarah Iremonger, Marianne Keating and Mick O'Shea. It was an inter-disciplinary installation at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh Co. Cork 2012 and allerArt, Bludenz, Austria 2011.
'Sub-plots' was the result of an exchange that was developed between allerArt in Bludenz, Austria and Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh over three years and was a response to place and a play on the idea that what is presented is not the whole 'story' or 'plot'. Working collaboratively in response to the idea of the 'Alps' (where Bludenz is situated) each artist engaged with the subject in their own way, though the intention was not to have boundaries between the works but to let them migrate through each other, the vision being a considered arrangement of composites rather than several visions vying for attention.
Stephen Brandes’s participation in the installation involved the design and production of eight new posters ranging in size from A4 to A0. These posters are suggestive of a golden age of travel when the previously inaccessible landscapes of the world were opening up to popular imagination and at the same time becoming emblematic of nationalistic endeavour.
From research in Australia, Sarah Iremonger developed new work for this installation, a wall painting with text and photographs, based on the work of Austrian/Australian 19th-century artist Eugene von Guérard whose work is referenced to create a disembodied relationship between the landscape of the Alps at Bludenz and von Guéards landscapes of Australia, in a sense bringing him home.
Marianne Keating created a text-based work, incorporating the text of French-Cuban author Anais Nin, “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are” in reference to the title of the exhibition and how each person can perceive the same event in many different ways. This piece was site-specific, screen-printed wallpaper, that captured the silhouettes of the Austrian alps created through the use of text.
Mick O’Shea’s sound installation of field recordings included spoken words from the texts used by the other artists, which at once connects and creates a disembodied atmosphere to the installation.
With thanks to Alfred Graf, Hildegard Gunz, allerArt Bludenz Austria, Broken Hill Art Exchange Inc. Desert Knowledge Australia, Outback Business Networks, National Parks Australia, rightbrain.ie, South Tipperary County Council and the Sirius Arts Centre. This project would not have been possible without the help of Culture Ireland.
Sarah Iremonger 2011
http://sub-plotsallerart.blogspot.ie
A set of six greeting cards exhibited in the display case, in the foyer of the Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, as part of the 'Sub-plots' exhibition 2012
Exhibited as part of 'Sub-plots' at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, 2012. Showing the research material used as part of the work and a photograph of the Living Desert Park, Australia
Exhibited as part of 'Sub-plots' at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, 2012. Showing the wall painting based on a drawing of the painting 'Weatherboard Falls' by Eugene von Guérard, the image was inverted and multiplied across the wall
Exhibited as part of 'Sub-plots' at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, 2012. Showing the wall painting based on a drawing of the painting 'Weatherboard Falls' by Eugene von Guérard, the image was inverted and multiplied across the wall
Exhibited as part of 'Sub-plots' at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, 2012. Showing a detail of the wall painting based on a drawing of the painting 'Weatherboard Falls' by Eugene von Guérard, the image was inverted and multiplied, and a photograph of a water tank in the Living Desert Park, Australia
Exhibited as part of 'Sub-plots' at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, 2012. Showing a detail of the wall painting based on a drawing of the painting 'Weatherboard Falls' by Eugene von Guérard, the image was inverted and multiplied
Exhibited as part of 'Sub-plots' at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork,2012. Showing a detail of the wall painting based on a drawing of the painting 'Weatherboard Falls' by Eugene von Guérard, the image was inverted and multiplied
Exhibited as part of 'Sub-plots' at Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Co. Cork, 2012. Showing a detail of the wall painting based on a drawing of the painting 'Weatherboard Falls' by Eugene von Guérard, the image was inverted and multiplied