WATERMARK, a project steadily ‘BUBBLING UP’
Focus: time and sight.
Research, typically meant to crack open certain ideas, has been our key concern this week…
In this instance, the visual trope of ‘water’ can unlock possibilities of sight and spark our curiosity to ‘look’ critically, to take note of the implicit, of the hidden signs hinted at in a painting. The eye can then fuse with the mind to read ‘between the lines’, see beyond the pictureper se. A shift, then, occurs: from perceptive to intuitive, so as to venture deeper into the artwork, and appreciate its full complexity. Such delight, perhaps, stems precisely from art’s intriguing, slightly puzzling quality. Each piece that calls up the intellect as well as the senses, the affect, indeed reaches its full potential to captivate us, ingrained in our memory.
To foster such awareness, our closer inspection is called for: only if the eye charts the cues and clues within, not from a distance, can it attend to, and respect, its intrinsic narratives. These woven entities denote a remarkable knowledge of the cosmos, a web that spins multiple worlds –words of the present, past and future; a fragment of metaphysics; the tactile score of nature all at once. There, in the landscape, its echo resonates with full force: water, source of life, aptly conveys just how vibrant, and alive Aboriginal Art is today. Bu charting this pulse –one of many-,
‘Watermark’ displays but one springboard for the artists’ creativity, securing ties between beings. Like a bridge across cultures and time, it is a tale of kin and ancestral lore, a re-enactment in paint of sacred beliefs.
Learn more about the exhibition