Exhibition floor talk | Companions
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Output Type
Other
Publication Title
Exhibition floor talk | Companions
Publisher
Edith Cowan University
School
School of Arts and Humanities; ECU Galleries
Description
Exhibition Statement | Companion - to share the experience of another, to accompany
Companions is a solo exhibition by artist Ruby Smedley. This series of figurative oil paintings explores the body as a communication tool impacting how we want to be and are perceived.
These paintings render the body as a physical connector to our inner intangible selves. Through experiences such as transition, pregnancy, parenting and chronic illness, the body changes as our identities grow and evolve. These works examine this intersection between obvious physical changes, such as pregnancy, and the quieter, subtle alterations that appear. Evident in how we think, feel, move, make gestures and engage our bodies with the surrounding environment.
The dramatic arrangements are based on sculptures from antiquity, drawing on the myths they depict and presenting them with a different view. People often left out of these well-known stories of human nature or only given space within a stereotype, are placed into these compositions. Consequently, we find and recoup alternative ways of experiencing, looking and thinking about virtues of strength, vulnerability, humility, pride and desire.
Artist Bio | Ruby Smedley is a Borloo-based artist, that graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2013. In 2019 she graduated with a Bachelor of Contemporary Art between Edith Cowan University and Taipei National Arts University, as a recipient of the New Colombo Plan Scholarship.
With a diverse creative background that incorporates theatre, film, sculpture, painting and drawing; Ruby’s practice often results in multi-disciplinary artworks that focus on the interactive, performative and kinetic. Basing projects within a foundation of how we perceive, interact and live with others, bringing our inner world — of emotions, thought processes and morals into the outer, where they collide with natural and social environments. Ruby’s latest works have centered around how these ideas are impacted by chronic illness, coming about from a recent diagnosis of endometriosis.
Additional Information
Exhibition dates: 12 October to 9 November | Floor talk: Wednesday 25 October 12:30pm–1:30pm