Sydney, Archibald and Simryn Gill

A visit to Sydney to see my sons turned out to be an artfest. The trip was booked months ago to take advantage of cheap domestic fares and I had no idea at the time that it would coincide with the Archibald prize and some amazing exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporry Art (MCA).
The Archibald winner is certainly impressive and captures the internalised darkness of the subject. There was a halftone screenprinted portrait by Mike Chavez and James Powditch's portrait of his father looked like a series of woodblocks over a matrix of A4 sized pieces of paper.

My favourite was Leanne Crisp's Considering Persephone which is beautifully constructed by layering watercolour on wet paper which means that each drop spreads and overlaps to build up texture and tone.

Also something to get excited about was the work of Simryn Gill at the MCA. This is a very impressive body of work which, 'considers how we might experience place and the intersection of personal and collective histories and geographies'. Of particular interest were a collection of 800 photographs taken each day over a period of one month as she walkd around her neighbourhood and a set of Life World Library books produced in the 60's.


The World Library books have been covered in white paper and had all of the text within them removed by sandpapering it away (a huge task) so that all that is left is a series of books filled with photographic images. As someone interested in history, place and perceptions this is an amazing piece of work which leaves the viewer with (as my former lecturer Ray Arnold would say) an unmediated view of the world. If you are in Sydney before March 22 try to catch this exhibition otherwise try to catch it in Adelaide, Brisbane or Melbourne (check the MCA website for details www.mca.com.au/default.asp?page_id=10&content_id=4513