Max Dawn Gallery

Shaw Hendry and Rachel McElwee

SALA Festival August 09
Just is
Beverly Southcott
Sera Wateres
Shaw Hendry (image)
Ed James
Rachel McElwee

This exhibition describes moments of otherness within the daily patterns of our lives. The artists’ new, experimental works reference the social and human condition mainly within the urban environment. It is about the almost unseen justices and injustices, ‘small’ heroics acts, cultural influences and the daily communications with others that often go unnoticed, unsaid or discounted within the every day.

Shaw Hendry’s recent installation works have the ability to innately transcend the ordinary into some thing else of joyful hope and delight. There is a strong element of play in the Provisional objects installation which allows for emotional observation and interaction by the viewer. This work makes reference to home-made toys. The Hermano Fan Club installation of hand painted ukuleles is a playful, yet contemplative piece that relates to fandom and notions of authenticity. With references to folk art, memorabilia, and artefacts of contemporary celebrity that are then enshrined, re-adorned for display by their fans. (Image above)

Edward James’s photographic images are often re-worked from low resolution imagery using mobile phones. When enlarged, these photos bring new meaning and philosophical analysis of the common usage of digital communications systems. James’s further exploration of the fragile veneer of ‘acceptable’ everyday behaviour is evident in the Fuse photo media series. The gaff tape over the face symbolizes societal prejudices that tolerate only seemingly nice behaviour and where other behaviours by people that are not considered ‘the norm’ are then ostracized by others.

Rachel Mc Elwee’s skilful photography and installation works in I never promised you a rose garden reflect the demands of living in ‘the burbs’ and ‘fighting’ drought conditions by undertaking DIY make overs to the gardens. Smothered with unnatural products the ‘consumer’ landscape becomes alive again with bright, colourful natural enhancements.

Mc Elwee’s works can be seen as humorous and yet are serious depictions of our need to humanize our urban environments according to social conditioning and peer pressures.

Sera Waters’ stitched cushions are timely and conceptual. With undertones of black humour they describe ‘small acts’ of discomfort in the seemingly undisturbed fabric of suburban living. These pieces map new ventures into the fabrication of disastrous drama. Each is a threatening scenario; terrifyingly awesome bodies of water, frozen conditions and fierce gales with electrical lashes, made squishy, softened and covered in stitches, lace, sequins and beads. Harrowing circumstances either human-made or natural disasters (or a mix of both), or internal tumult, are featured on these soft, ‘comfortable’ cushions.

Tsunami by Sera Waters

Beverley Southcott’s photo imagery describes where perception can change one’s thoughts from discomfort to hope that occur in transitional events such as re-locating to a new interstate city to live. The Day by Day photo media series were taken through two small holes, punched on paper thus capturing circular portals to the new home space. Creating that sense of not quite participating and feeling slightly apart from the 'world around'. During this settling in time, the unfamiliar becomes familiar and that ‘silver lining’ appears again as seen in the ready made, beige curtain drop that accompanies the photographs.