Mote

Many of the online definitions for ‘mote’ relate it to a perceptual impediment, a speck of dust in our eyes.

The dynamic nature of perception, constantly reshaping the reception and evaluation of an artist’s creative output, remains an integral concern within contemporary art practice. That our perception changes as contexts change is now commonly understood, what is less commonly known is that our perception is also in a state of constant physiologically change. “Perceptual adaptation” is the term applied to this activity within our sensorium and nothing demonstrates it more clearly than our visual perception of the world.

We see upside down, the images projected onto our eyes’ retinas are upside down. It appears that to make sense of our environment we instinctively and unconsciously develop the capacity to flip this image very early in our formative years. What is clear from research into this phenomenon is that we flip our vision in correlation to our touch of our environments. In effect we feel, rather than see, the right side up.

The three artists in this show privilege us by revealing parts of their lives in which they are perceptually adapting to significant loss, to an erosion of their worlds. While we may not be aware of the direct circumstances they are adapting to, their honesty and courage gives these works a poignancy we respond to. Having discussed these works with them I have glimpsed what has been lost; belonging, relationship and intimacy. How we address loss, how we grieve cannot be reduced to manageable parts. It’s a matter of allowing our selves to feel the new shape of a place after loss has eroded it and adapting. These three artists have scribed their lived experiences of adapting into materials, processes and form.

belonging:

Having refined her material palette in her last body of work Tess Mehonoshen hones and extends her vocabulary of marks and materials in this body of work. With references to wrapping, gathering, tethering and the intimate familiarity that comes from belonging, these bundled foldings give tactile shape to the loss of a rural family home.

The packages are a containment, some spill their folds to reveal their interiors. All are fraying and give off an inevitable residue of dust, even the act of containing effects a loss. From the new material – bitumen – disquieting bundles emerge, a further act of containment and at odds to the transition from raw earth to urban cement. These are almost a dead weight, and yet their presence does not overpower the clear narrative of adaptation. It’s futile to ignore loss, though denial is a fundamental part of its embrace. Naming things is a political act but it is also a release, and the visual naming of these perceptual impediments exemplifies the tangible role art can play in our lived experiences.

relationship:

Alison McKay’s work is fragile. Her practice is vulnerable and reflects the nature of her concerns. How do we describe an event when the language we use effectively alters its representation. In these works we are confronted with paradoxes supported by teetering structures. The material forms are tenuous and yet the immaterial here is substantial.

A suspended rectangular sandscape, orderly pierced by nails and eroded at the edges. We sense this object might fall any moment in a number of ways. As in all of McKay’s work there is an insoluble tension in this piece, evident in the relationships between its material parts. Take the escarpment edges, the unstable nature of sand and the piercing nails. Experience would tell us a nail probably formed these edges and yet the ordered rows of nails imply a more resilient substance than we sense.

These works ask us to be quiet, to consider the nature of relationships, of the inevitable loss that must accompany gain, the grief that must accompany love.

intimacy:

Working with materials that replicate a familiarity with our bodies, Naomi O’Reilly asks us to consider, what is it we loose when a visceral intimacy we share with another becomes distant.

Rest comes to mind as I consider O’Reilly’s question. The familiarity I share with my partner of our bodies emphasizes our blemishes. Combined we are a place, we need each other to rest from the incessant voices,

internal and external, that question our appearances. Change is fundamental to intimacy and touch within a relationship is integral to adapting to change. Out of touch is literally a loss of touch and a loss of place.

O’Reilly places us within a tiled space, a surface designed to tolerate the aggressive cleaning agents we are promised will help keep us clean. In a climate of hyper sensitivity to being clean, of touched up colours and images, our familiarity with our bodies is difficult to discuss and O’Reilly successfully engages us.

moat:

As with any language the capacity to express is tempered by the inherent constraints of a vocabulary. A moat might protect us if we cut our selves off, but from what? Language is a two way street, to remain in touch is to remain vulnerable, to separate from touch is to distance, to lose a capacity to perceptually adapt to our changing environments.

Feeling is still the only way to sense the right side up.

Written by Tim Mosely.

From the exhibition ‘Mote’, featuring artists: Alison McKay, Naomi O’Reilly and Tess Mehonoshen. The exhibition was shown at Queensland College of Art – Webb Gallery from the 11th – 28th January. Tim Mosely lectures in the Fine Art program at Queensland College of Art.

Mote - Glen Skein
Poetic Response

N.1

this disburdened  impulse

immune to depth

a singing that lies in staying within

 shallow surface

 with nothing submerged

desire

and loss

circulate in

flesh map-like pools

that blister around

remnants of self

vocations and callings

 waiting their placement

this room and this tile

against the wall

incline towards the light

with scissors

you arc and bow

drawing together

collage and event

without alterations 

like Joan of Arc

you set forth across this parcel of land

this small occupation of self

a halo mask

 in one act

a series of collected fallings

N.2

paged receptors beneath screen

mouth

finger sense contained

creature

reptile primal birth of sound remaining mute or mote

the birth of sound eyes of light shift emerge

bubbled language

sound in flesh

primal bubble teeth

flesh skin birth

gleaning nothing

enduring phenomenon.

A.3

elevated to the height of a small child

unnamed   I circle and gather your sway in the world

 with my breath

I tease your

composed and balanced presence

to observe a grounding

to  know your spirit

And construct

 your gradual shift

exposed to every edge of the world

hours of  fragile transitions

 almost without witness

embedded and caught in a falling pitch

 your assembled tilt of anchors

having found a place

above  wooded pillars

that await

vulnerable and unguarded

your duration and Impermanence

slowly

falling away

A.4

In endless postponement 

ciphers of time and space

delayed

in metal-thread  and timber-linen

taking hold like

post card correspondence

this ordered scale of playful recoveries

 like some  teasing departure

a spill 

 a progression of swimming reflections

each shadowed  interval

gathering no visible hold

 like a found photograph

I search for its punctum

that detail that pricks

or leaves a faint bruise

Orpheus-like

 you never turn back to look at what you have given

what holds me is only revealed when I am not present

 Kafka-like

you close your eyes

to drive these things from your mind

but they do not leave

they are fastened down like butterflies

fixed in submerged misplacement

with this wall we no longer collapse

the spectator

the human reach

 its function

 its history

becoming mute vibrations of  absence

to execute and allow

the need to be made still

In  coded alterations

with your  finger tip bindings

a surrender of self to objects

spare of  inscriptions

A.5

this single page from the book

of the poets geometry

 a thread-swing  threshold

that avows to ceremony 

sending word

of denkraum’s

thought-space

 this parlous

touch and go

suspension

its calm collision of surface and depth

 a correspondence

 that gifts inaudible departures 

 between collected ground

 and surveyed reflections

 I stay longer beneath its verge

below its plural anchors

where its only instruction 

 is silence

T.6

Book like

topographies of self and place

companion volumes of bound visitations

 walls of folds

In halos of dust ochre and charcoal clay

your  taxon classifications of earths memory

gathered philosophies of ground

that hold and serve

void of fragments

enfolded with single responses

this nearness of the earths language

in self sufficient acts

complete articulations

now awaiting their return

to some rightful place

placement and displacement

disclosed and  grasped 

in equal parts

in muslin fabric clay cement

 a constant desire of unearthing

to gather and retain

what remains

of  your belonging

 held within geologic folds

each an entrance

to interior histories

 fabric-bound hauntings

within every form there is a sky

still possessed of its lingering divine 

a gathering of space by chance event

the earth returning

ground as ritual

mutual

inverse

opening space

measured and unhurried

 a choice of thread

its tenderness

holds to this particular moment

between collecting  and discarding

to a returning

to a  giving back

this archive of transitions

halted

momently

estranged

 calls for return