Sightlines - c.a.s.e. members exhibition
Smallworks Gallery, Murwillumbah, Qld. 9 - 20 April 2022
Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt,
and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
– Leonardo da Vinci
Focusing on their multifaceted experiences of living in the Northern Rivers, 'Sightlines' is a collaboration between a group of local poets, and the artists who make up the c.a.s.e (contemporary art space and education) committee.
artists:
Tali Cohen-Flantz, Mirna Barakat, Elaine Pollen, Leora Sibony, Annique Goldenberg, Sandra Rubbo, Rachel Dun, Carolyn Delzoppo, Shelly Anfield, Bianca Charleston, Pru Bleasdale
poets:
Sarah Temporal, Matt Hetherington, Peter Mitchell, Rosemary Nissen-Wade, Rowan Rose
This exhibition is taking place on Bundjalung Country of the Bundjalung Nation
Reflections
I have approached this call and response exhibition as a form of poetic assemblage, an ode to memory and evolution. When reading the poems, I found myself drawn to the shorter passages, a line here and there, a haiku, or a senryu. These moments evoked in me images, colours, shapes, and stories which I could then use as a way to initiate a visual realisation.
Drawing on my archive of unfinished works, unused papers, and found objects, gathered
over the last eleven years, I felt a renewed delight upon discovering sketches, test pieces, and fragments of works that had never been given a chance to shine.
A pattern emerged of a layered assemblage approach, forming in response to each poem’s impression. I am conscious of how our lives, worlds, and times are intimately interconnected, and so enjoyed discovering how the ideas I was drawn to in the poems, inspired new meanings and relationships in my material expressions.
Poems:
Haikus # 2, #3, and #8 by Rosemary Nissen-Wade
Oh!
the bougainvillea –
purple splash
Spring breeze –
a dead leaf dangles
from a web
darkness gathers
the old mountains
stand their ground
Solastalgia - three moments from within the poem - by Rowan Rose
That summer’s inventions were
new words for loss.
We the uninvited have been gutting the joint
& now have the gall to wheedle on talkback
about the blowback. Smoke in throat –
you’re breaking up mate, you’re breaking
up. A denial, coughed up, is
still – go on, then, burn the replica
of a circumnavigation that never happened.
This alarm’s been screaming
so long it’s become just white
noise. Pedestrian light. Overhead flight.
That thickness above, it’s not rain clouds. Dogs
skittish and bitey in the hot wind. The sick
laughter of picnickers. Smog choke sky.
Then there was the silence.
The body wanting water
for gum-stuck lips, nail-scream throat,
rolling dust eyes.
How much my flesh wanted
rain, the relief that should have been
cracking open this sky, tiger-striped.
I look towards the sun. A dull
orange pancake. Rage.
Don’t look away.
We’re lying in cigarette butts
and beer caps, calling it a park. Crying
under our placards. Seeking solace
in tiny boats from the shore’s flames.
How sick
to think we are not what we walk on.
How sick
to feel it only now and not forever.
I step into the water
at dusk. Stretch my gaze to
where the depths fade.
I offer my salt to that which
meets me. I offer my meat
as more trash, as sandbag
for rising water, as collateral.
If it stalls all this
just one second more:
take it.
noon - senryu by Matt Hetherington -
noon green breeze through ferns