The Tangible Trace – Artist Talks

Hear from artists Simryn Gill (Singapore/Malaysia/Australia), Carlos Capelán (Uruguay/Sweden), Shilpa Gupta (India) and Sangeeta Sandrasegar (Australia) as they discuss their new artworks in The Tangible Trace with curator Victoria Lynn. Free with exhibition entry, no bookings required.

Please note that The Tangible Trace will close for a private event from 3-5pm on Sunday 9 June. Visitors are encouraged to plan accordingly to allow ample time to view the full exhibition. 

Artists:

Simryn Gill’s wide-ranging practice considers questions of place and history, and how they might intersect with personal and collective experience. Gill presents multiple works including a series of photographs and monoprints that the artist made in the remains of a Malaysian seaside motel by pressing paper directly onto inked walls, and large pieces of cloth onto the mosaic floors. The troughs, holes and grooves become a negative space on the prints; a void for the imagination; a material trace of both a situation and a memory that becomes abstracted and unclear in the process.

Gill also presents her major installation Domino Theory. Comprised of large vitrines designed by the artist and Belgian architect Hilde Daem, the structure is filled with materials from Port Dickson, Malaysia, where Gill lives and works, including bricks, tiles, stones and corals collected from beaches and cubes made from termite soil. The items are catalogued in the vitrines based on form, material, function, size, colour and other systems known only to the artist

Carlos Capelán’s multi-layered, atmospheric installations and paintings explore issues of displacement, dislocation and identity. In a new suite of paintings produced for The Tangible Trace, figures are depicted against a patchwork of abstract squares and rectangles. Inspired by analytical cubism and geometric abstraction, the works appear almost like spectral images, with their multiple gazes out towards the viewer suggesting they are like ghosts or echoes from the past.

Indian artist Shilpa Gupta has created two new works for The Tangible Trace, including one that takes the form of a large piece of concrete, engraved with text in multiple languages. The work has been fragmented into hundreds of pieces on site, with the audience invited to take away a piece as a ‘trace’ of the work. Gupta’s second work continues her copper maps series, for which she has created an outline of Australia from fine copper wires.

Sangeeta Sandrasegar’s art practice engages with our understanding and acceptance of vision, and explores the nature of shadow and light. What fall from view 2019, developed for The Tangible Trace, expands upon concepts of what is seen and unseen. The installation, comprising five large, floor to ceiling textile works, disrupt windows which frame picturesque views of the Yarra Valley landscape outside, and change with the shifting light and shadow throughout the day. Her new development into botanical dyeing marks the beginning of a new investigation tracing the story of colour production as a means of exploring the cultural, political and economical relations of place. In this case, the use of Indian Indigo and Australian native cherry alludes to the post-colonial relationships between Australia and India.