Lexi Land’s “Bone Palace Surreal”

By Benjamen Judd

Visit Website

There is nothing more satisfying than seeing the fruit of ones labours come together into a stunning, glorious whole. Particularly when it involves art. And art made by friends. Which is why we are super happy and proud to announce that Sydney-based artist, Lexi Land, is holding her third exhibition, Bone Palace Surreal, on Wednesday, October 29 at Leonard Mattis Studio in Surry Hills.

A macabre descent into myth and madness, Bone Palace Surreal is reflection on theatre and the performance of the body. I got the chance to chat to Lexi ahead of the show and discuss some of the concepts that lay behind the images and what inspired her to create this latest collection of work.

BJ: Your latest exhibition, Bone Palace Surreal, touches on the idea of performance and theatre within art. Can you tell me more about what inspired this collection?

LL: I’ve always been interested in performance. It’s a way to illuminate my existence. Bone Palace Surrealhad many threads of inspiration – one being Herman Hesse’s ‘Steppenwolf’. I wanted to create my own demented theatre – a place beyond reality where I could explore expression.

Like a fisherman goes to the ocean to catch fish and uses a baited rod, his catch eventually feeding him… the theatre becomes my ocean using my physicality to catch whatever it is I’m looking to hook, feed and have nourish me.

The process is layered, I’m not looking to create a picture to hang on a wall but to explore in depth a surreal state of being – bringing the mysterious to life and fleshing out it’s bones – it’s a mode of discovery and it’s always unfolding.

BJ: A continuous thread in your work is your own body – its presence permeates your images and tends to be more canvas than the canvas or paper itself. Is there a reason behind this?

LL: Firstly because it’s incredibly convenient – I’m always around to be used. And secondly it’s that’s precisely what I want to say… I am here, I exist, this is my structure – which leads to deeper questions like – what is here, what exists etc… my main source of inspiration is existence – to be alive and breathing – questioning keeps me entertained and  ultimately that’s all life is – pretty damn entertaining!

BJ: To me, Bone Palace seems the least personal in the chronology of your work. Was this a deliberate turning away from introspection?

LL: I’m surprised you think that… well not surprised, nothing is that surprising but I don’t agree. It is definitely personal and introspective…it’s a theatre built within me. I am the theatre, the figure that appears is also me…naked I am born, the red signifies birth, sex, death; it’s a stage to free my psyche, my spirit and the flesh that binds me…maybe that’s why you felt it wasn’t as personal or introspective because I am freeing my persona and slipping mad and drunk into the mysterious realm of the ambiguous surreal?

BJ: I think maybe the reason that I saw this as the least personal is because you seem to be so lost in the performance itself – which is what any good actor does. Would you say then that this series is really a dramatic act where you play yourself playing yourself but in a grander scheme of life’s stage?

LL: Your interpretation is interesting but for me it’s not so much a deliberate ‘act’ where I’m playing a role…Bone Palace Surreal is a question. It’s a real-surreal, strange land, a place to reveal my bare-bones in the maddened night. It’s my unconscious, my conscious – a dream and it’s dangerously alive and unknown.

My previous works are of my image in a void, separate from anything and isolated, making the work all about the figure – now, for the first time in this series, I am somewhere, I’m suddenly in an environment – doing something… but it is still introspective and personal because symbolically the environment I’m in is just as void and only an extension of me.

BJ: How did you develop the concept behind the Bone Palace Surreal? 

LL: It began as a taste… a sudden vision, bones, erotic, flesh, dark, moody, pussy, opera, strange land, raw, twisted, I use words, write short stories and poems about the initial taste – then came performance which as mentioned is more like ritual – I painted bones on my body, sculptured masks, to breath life into the figure, I kept writing, sketching, dreaming. Once the performances were filmed and I had some strange footage – I captured the figures and began the constructing – drawing and collage.

BJ: Originally, theatre was a spiritual experience. Was there a particular myth, or mythic, tradition that you worked with when developing this series?

LL: Instinct.

BJ: Where there any artists, or performances, that you looked to for inspiration during the piece?

LL: I never intentionally ‘look’or research for inspiration but often find once the concept has been conceived I coincidentally happen on things during the process that inspire and relate in perfect alignment to what I’m creating.

The name itself was inspired by a book of poetry by Charles Bukowski ‘Bone Palace Ballet’this title ignited a vision in me about 15 years ago when a friend gave me the book.  As mentioned earlier Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, the drawings of Hans Bellmer are a continuous inspiration, Francis Bacon’s paintings – the figure on a platform/stage and Antonin Artaud.

Bone Palace Surreal will launch on Wednesday, October 29 at Leonard Mattis Studio in Surry Hills and will run until November 30.