Audio descriptions for the Open Borders, Regional Arts Triennial exhibition at John Curtin Gallery.

OPEN BORDERS 2023

Betty Bundamurra – Hunting for the animals

‘Hunting for the animals’, 2022, by Betty Bundamurra, is made from natural pigment on paper, the size of the artwork is 57 x 76cm. This artwork created in an illustrative style depicts a busy traditional scene of figures and animals in a bush setting. It features a yellow ochre background with seven long thin figures spaced evenly around the artwork. Three of these figures are red ochre in colour, they are dotted with white ochre and lined with black to create skirts, long hair, and traditional bags. Two of the red figures are located to the far left of the picture, one is positioned above the other and the third is located two thirds along the bottom of the frame. The other four figures are black ochre, these figures are dotted with white ochre and lined with white to create skirts, long hair and traditional bags. Three of the black figures are in the top half of the painting and the fourth is located in the bottom right corner. These figures appear to be both women and Kira Kiro spirits. They look as if caught in joyful motion with some of their arms uplifted, hair swaying,  some of the backs are bent in movement. The figures are surrounded by animals, painted mainly in white with red ochre and black detailing. These animals include two lizards, a snake, an echidna, a bush turkey, a turtle, a Barramundi, and a dog. There is also an emu with a white body, face and legs with red ochre feathers dotted with white. Five white shapes with black marks, and four black shapes with zigzag lines are scattered throughout the scene, these depict rocks after rain. There are also tufts of grey grass, some with white flowers placed randomly around the picture. There is an overall sense of richness and a connection to country.

The artist is a prolific artist, storyteller and poet from Kalumburu. Along with other community elders, she established the Kira Kiro Artists in 2009 to represent artists from her area. Their involvement with Waringari Aboriginal Arts demonstrates the way in which Waringarri fosters artistic activity across language groups, moving across cultural borders.

The artist describes the scene ‘ Women hunting and gathering the animals. Animals hiding in the hedges and animal tracks of all the animals following their friends. Spirits too talk normally around pools and rock areas. Kira Kiro are planting during the rain season dragging their long hair while dropping seeds.’

Betty Bundamurra

Melissa Boughey – Audio description


Melissa Boughey – Body in Repose(obscure, veil, overlay)

‘Body in Repose(obscure, veil, overlay)’, 2022,  by Melissa Boughey, is an oil on canvas, the size of the artwork is 135 x 110cm. This window sized oil painting, features the layering of different shades of blues, browns, greyish green, pink, white and flesh tones. 

The work is hung on the wall at eye level in a portrait orientation and as we study the artwork we begin to see connections to its title; the obscuring, veiling and overlaying. The painting comprises energetic broad brushstrokes, which vary in direction sometimes horizontal and other times vertical. These abrupt strokes break the painting into shapes and sections. In the top half of the picture, a pale sky blue on the left and turquoise blue on the right have been overlayed with a reddish brown tint, redolent of the red dirt of Central Australia and also in a striped horizontal movement that is suggestive of a gorge or mountain range. These were significant places for her subject.

This section has been interrupted randomly by streaks of vertical white, symbolic of the simplified form of white ghost gum trunks and spirit forms. A dark blue zigzags across a greenish blue background in the right hand middle segment. A section of greyish green erupts from the bottom righthand corner and also a similar shape is found three quarters of the way down the left side of the artwork. The artist was considering the colours and patterns of the Moroccan textiles of the burial cloth and other shapes in the room.

Reddish brown zigzags over a flesh tone in the bottom left hand corner.  Smaller gestures of pink, scrawl across flesh tones in a middle portion at the bottom of the painting. There is a fleshy splotchy shape that is located just south and to the right of the centre of the painting, which suggest elements of the body in repose. The shapes float above the push and pull of the paint below.

The artist is usually inspired by the landscape. Through her energetic gestural marks she expresses, both the wild and tamed aspect of  nature though her close daily interactions of living and working on a farm in Denmark, Western Australia. 

This work, one in a series of four, reflects her experience and feelings about the intensely personal experience of witnessing her close friend’s death. She was honoured to be present when her friend, passed between life and death; the ultimate border. 

Following  a period of inertia, the artist eventually began painting, trusting the process. With oil stick she began with a gestural memory drawing of her friend lying in repose from the perspective of the end of the bed, particularly focused on the underside of the chin and foreshortened features, she then subtly erased, obscured, and layered using personal cues and references, so that only a hint of the original drawing remains. The artist found the process cathartic, saying ‘these works freed me’.

Melissa Boughey

Amelia Blanco – Audio Description

Amelia Blanco – Metal Trees Don’t Grow

‘Metal Trees Don’t Grow’, 2022, by Amelia Blanco, is made from steel wire, the size of the artwork is 70 x 50 x 40 cm. The artwork features a sculpture in the form of a tree sitting on a white plinth at waist height. The tree made from steel wire looks bent and tortured it’s branches ending in bristly leaves. The roots coming from the base of the tree and surrounding it are bent upwards from the earth as if wary of the soil or searching for water. The sculpture sits out from the wall, a strong light shining onto the tree casts a large shadow of the sculpture on the wall behind. As we study the shadow we notice that the roots on the tree create the words HELP in the shadow cast on the wall behind. The artist is from Port Hedland, a place that is wholly driven by the mining and the export of iron ore for steel production. The artist uses steel to express their concern for her community and the effect that mining is doing to growth in her home town.

The artist takes inspiration from her three simultaneous careers in, videography and photography, lighting design for events and as a mechanic. They see the opportunities and limitations that mining has offered the young people in her community. Blanco has overcome barriers and borders by pursuing education and work in other places, before returning home to her multi-generational family. She enjoys drawing on all her skills in her art, focusing on movement, light and shadow.

Amelia Blanco

Andrew Bowman – Bright - Avarice + Truthfulness

‘Avarice + Truthfulness’ , 2022, by Andrew Bowmen – Bright, is made from a printed canvas (the game) and a wooden ladder, the size of the artwork is 280 x 280 cm for the canvas and 214 x 40 x 6 for the wooden ladder. The artwork consists of a human size version of the game Snakes and Ladders attached to the wall, and a wooden ladder that sits in front leaning on the game. The printed game is made of squares that are yellow, red and grey. These squares of colour alternate randomly through the canvas. All the squares are numbered from 1 to 100, starting in the bottom left hand corner, running to the right across the canvas to 10, before preceding to 11 in the square above.  Then moving across the canvas to the left to 20, before moving to 21 above. This process of moving horizontally, zigzagging up the canvas proceeds to end in square 100 at the top left hand corner. Based on the original version of Snakes and Ladders created in ancient India and known as Moksam Patam. This large version contains twenty one of the squares that have text and images linked to positive and negative attributes or behaviours. Eight yellow Ladders are linked to positive behaviours like kindness and truthfulness, indicating when we land on these we progress in the game. Thirteen red and yellow snakes are connected to negative attributes like selfishness and depravity, these indicate we would move backward in the game of life. 

This work comes from the cultural renaissance which is happening in small Mid West  communities through North Midlands Project. Bowman-Bright works across several fronts, in caring for the town and region’s history, while also playing a role in creating opportunities for individual and community expression. North Midlands Project challenges stereotypes of identity in the by giving voice to diversity. This version of Snakes and Ladders, is an enlarged reproduction of an edition from the collection of the Carnamah Historical Society & Museum. It conveys the social borders which can exist for an individual or in a community. The placement of the wooden ladder against the boardgame conveys a sense of hope by offering a way to climb over these barriers of judgement. The artist poses the question that whether they are positive or negative, all behaviours have the potential to restrict, constrain and create walls within us.

Andrew Bowman-Bright

Tina Carmody – Spring in Our Country.
‘Spring in Our Country’, 2022, by Tina Carmody, materials and techniques include pyrography, carving, etching and acrylic on board, the size of the artwork is 100 x 60cm. The artwork is a wooden board depicting the abundance of life and vibrancy in the desert in springtime. The piece is about the size of a window and has been installed on the gallery wall at eye height in a portrait orientation. The work is divided into three sections, two smaller portions about 25cm wide surround the larger middle segment. There has been a variety of techniques being used over the surface to create illustrative shapes and patterns. The top section is a made from multiple layers of paint and mark making. The bottom layer of the top section, contains a washy pattern of pale yellow, red and greys. This pattern has been overlayed with a light dry brushing of a deep blue. The blue has been applied in wavy sections over the bottom layer to create, a rippling effect, with lighter thin bands running through the deeper blue. We get the feeling of water. Black circles surrounded by white dotting are placed randomly throughout this dark blue section, looking like bubbles erupting through the surface of water. The black circles and most of the black marks on the wooden board have been created by pyrography, by burning marks into the wooden surface. The focus of the top section is an aqueous shape with a mushroom like top, created using dotted burn marks. The shape made from hundreds of small burn dots spreads from the top portion of the artwork into the top of the middle section. 
Seven long black lines, representing the seven sisters, with circles on each end, start in the aqueous shape at the top of the artwork, run vertically through the middle section, to end in the last section. Painted on a bare board, the middle section contains an abundance of patterns depicting walking and meeting places, illustrative representations of flora, bush foods, rock holes, sand dunes and animal tracks. We see clusters of light purple flowers, and smaller bunches red flowers spread throughout. Light green leaves on winding vines are found at the top of the middle portion and concentric semi circles (often representing sand dunes) are seen towards the bottom of this section. Three circles linking together with thick black lines to form V’s are found on either side of the seven long lines that divide the image. To the right side of the lines the V is upright and to the left it is upside down (mirrored). There are small orange shapes that have an inner circle and five pieces coming off this circle to form other small circles. Small circles of yellow surrounded by half circles, people sitting around fire. Light blue circles containing concentric circles are linked with dotted connectors. These series of shapes represent meeting places around rocky outcrops and water sources. Throughout this section we see small half circles, and small lines representing men and women sitting. There are also the animal tracks making long sweeping lines through the abundant landscape.
The last section of the artwork features a mostly turquoise blue background that has patches of pink and yellow mixed in. This has a network of red ochre lines , that meet with varying sizes of black circles. These circles are ringed with white dotting.  This section makes us think of the network of rock holes or soakage points running through the desert landscape.

Tina Carmody

Ned Crossley - Fence(d)

‘Fence(d)’, 2022, by Ned Crossley, is made from salvaged saplings, the size of the artwork is 150 x 240 cm. The artwork consists of thirty one salvaged saplings. These sticks rescued from fire have been smoothed and shaped then suspended vertically along the wall. The sticks are from a variety of local trees, mostly Rock Sheoaks and Hakeas as well as some Marri and Jam trees. The pieces of wood range in size, from 150 to 50 cm in length and are about 2 to 6cm in diameter.  Most of the sticks have burnt tapered ends and some are burnt in different sections. Some have completely smooth surfaces and others have small sections of rough bits of bark still attached. Many of the pieces have small branches coming off the main body, though some are smooth like a traditional walking stick. The art work has a tactile quality, we would love to touch the surfaces,  feel the individual sticks that would fit nicely  into the grip of a hand, they look useful. The installation of the saplings on the wall in a row makes us think of the title of the piece ‘Fence (d)’, though they are more of an idea of a fence, a lyrical construction. The sticks attached to the wall at regular intervals across the work, are hung at differing heights within a set 150 cm parameter. Like notes in a bar of music, the sticks flow up and down the work, as we gaze or walk it’s length. 

The saplings were rescued from a fire break, that was being ruthlessly cleared around the borders of the artist’s property in Williams, in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. The artist’s careful shaping and placement in this installation comes from his consideration for his place in the environment. He has a deep respect for Aboriginal people who lived here before him and their connection to boodja, to country. In the creation of this work he used traditional techniques of fire and stone, that First Nations people used to fashion tools for hunting and gathering. The artist has created the artwork as a memorial to the casualties of  human action.

Ned Crossley

Melissa Drummond – Erosion

‘ Erosion’, 2022, by Melissa Drummond, is a photographic diptych, made of inkjet prints on archival paper, the artwork is comprised of two prints that are each 74 x 104 cm. The artwork features two atmospheric landscape photographs, installed on the gallery wall next to each other in a landscape orientation. Both images contain dramatic scenes, the left photo depicts the brewing of a violent storm, it shows billowing thick pink clouds set against a darker sky. This dark backdrop has a haze of purple on the right hand and a shimmer of pink on the left. The tempestuous sky sits above a dark purple landscape. The dark colours of the land surround a lighter, hazy centre, giving the appearance of mist coming off a valley. 

The second image depicts a bruised purple sky, a brooding sunset on the dark remnants of a demolition site in Williamstown, a place being encroached upon by the underground mining operations. A large crumpled piece metal shines in the foreground of the image. This abandoned section of corrugated iron folded in a complicated pattern shimmers golden and silver in the dying light. Lit like some large abstract sculpture it becomes the focus of the image. The piece of metal is surrounded by the detritus of mining construction site, torn branches, spindly trees and shards of metal.  Barely discernible in the image, an iron fence missing a sheet sits in the distance to the left of crumpled sculpture, a cross beam, highlighted by a thin line of red.  Our eyes drift from the shiny remnant to a large yellow excavator (digger) in the background and to the right of the image. In the scarred landscape the excavator is facing away from us, the rays from the setting sun illuminate the lights on the rear of the digger, and cross sections of the machine. A thin line of golden sky sits on the horizon behind the yellow excavator, it touches tufts of soft blue at the base and a lavender purple clouds above. Small flecks of pinky red can be found amongst the bruised sky. The rich colours and the drama of the scenes presented in both photographs pulls the images together. The images form a narrative, two frames in a longer story, documenting the destruction of nature through human industry.

The artist is a documentary photographer based in Kalgoorlie. They have a background in earth science and are interested in the intersection of mining and the natural world. Her artistic practice often involves seeking out quiet, abandoned and degraded environments, recording the influence and impact of human activity. The images capture the attrition of borders, both universal and local. The artist is exploring the ideas of borders and erosion, they believe they are intrinsically linked to destruction and displacement, and this is found particularly when it comes to our sense of self and place.

Melissa Drummond

Jen Mitchell – Grounded

‘Grounded’, 2022, by Jen Mitchell, is an acrylic painting on linen, the size of the artwork is 380 x 220cm. The artwork features a view through an aeroplane window painted on a gridded background. The painted view contained within the shape of the window, depicts part of the wing and an engine of the plane amongst a blue and white cloudscape. The image has been painted with large gestural movements, with the paint being applied in varying levels of thickness. In some places a grid of small squares shows through these expressive brushstrokes. The window is roughly oval in shape, lined with a black and white strips. The sky takes up about a third of the picture through the window,  the top is a deep blue that blends with white below to lighten towards the horizon, looking like clouds moving across a blue sky. There is a small section of turquoise blue towards the right side of the sky. The horizon is a  scraped back thin line revealing small vertical lines below. Turquoise blue mixed with slashes of white is found directly below the horizon, resembles the colour of the sea, making us feel that we are possibly travelling over water. The work was actually inspired by flying over the wheat belt on a cloudy day, with the light and colours from sky bouncing back. This was the first flight for the artist after being grounded for a long time. A dark blue cylindrical shape , possibly the plane engine sits over a long tapering rectangle (the wing). The wing has two horizontal stripes of light blue mixed with white , these stripes start at the blue engine shape and move toward the end of the wing. One of the stripes finishes at the end of the wing and the other stops when another crosses it two thirds of the way down. The wing contains squares of a tan yellow lined with a greyish black. The same tan yellow is found running down the left hand side of the window between lines of white and black. A grid of grey squares lined with black, approximately twenty centimetres wide, surround the window. These 700 squares, 697 of which represent each day the Western Australian border remained closed during lockdowns. Three squares of tan yellow are in the bottom righthand corner, above this is the artist’s signature JEN MITCHELL. The expressive natural seascape contrasts with the geometric shapes making up the airplane. The artwork is very large and is suspended unframed filling the wall. Due to the size of the work being much larger than ourselves, when we gaze at the view, it can be overwhelming, we can feel ourselves falling into the cloudscape. 

The artist grew up on  small island in the Northwest of the USA and has lived in Western Australia since 2006. Before Covid, the ubiquitous image of an airplane window was an essential part of her life as someone who has made her ‘home’ away from the place she was born. The artist explores the idea that borders effect our construct of home, after this global change. With thirty two percent of Western Australia’s population born overseas, the closed borders meant for some people opportunity and community, for others it meant loss, isolation and severance.

Jen Mitchell

Kate Alida Mullen - The Snake Way Home floortalk at John Curtin Gallery as part of the Open Borders exhibition.

Kate Alida Mullen Floortalk at John Curtin Gallery 20-9-23

Join acclaimed Sydney artist, Janet Laurence and John Curtin Distinguished Emeritus Professor Peter Kinny for a special talk celebrating the completion of the artwork ‘Cliff’ in Building 418, School of Design and Built Environment at Curtin University's Bentley campus.

Commissioned by Curtin University, through the John Curtin Gallery (Art Coordination by Apparatus) CLIFF is now part of the Curtin University Art Collection. A significant commission undertaken in Building 418, ‘Cliff’ is an installation of Western Australian geological specimens that Janet describes as “the matter of nature” - telling a story of deep time.

Find out more about the inspiration behind this amazing public artwork; the stories behind the rocks on display, and the process of bringing it all together.

Tina Carmody

John Curtin Gallery

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