Firstdraft’s February Instalment

By Benjamen Judd

For their February instalment, Woolloomooloo’s Firstdraft Gallery has opened a fascinating exhibition that showcases the work of four Australian artists working in rural areas that will be running until February 28.

“Sydney-based and rurally engaged” has been the term to describe artists Siân McIntyre, Alex Pye and photographers Laura Moore (Framed) and Christopher Handran (Aqueous Humour).

Taking place across all four galleries, the exhibition highlights the intersections of Australian culture that occur in rural settings. Using photography, installation, video and sculptures, the four artists explore the experience of rural Australian life.

In Laura Moore’s ‘Framed’ she examines the nature of photography itself, experimenting with the capacity of the photographic portrait to represent complex meanings about identity.

Alex Pye’s Cumnock: The Musical uses sculpture, found object and video to reflect the social issues that he experienced from living in a rural backwater for three years.

Christopher Handran’s Aqueous Humour engages with the experiential logics of immersion, sensation and spectacle, to create a playfully contemplative space. The works in the exhibition continue an exploration of the mediation of lived experience, and the losses and gains that are incurred in this process of translation.

Siân McIntyre’s Circular Settlements is the the output of three years of research in Australia and Scotland. An installation incorporating sound, turf, video and print, Circular Settlements reflects on dislocation and loss.

A fascinating reflection of Australian life told through the eyes of four unique artists, Firstrdraft’s February instalment shouldn’t be missed.