In 2015 a body of related works, strangely familiar, was shown in two different formats, in two consecutive exhibitions. The series consists of drawings on paper, ceramic drawings, and ceramic objects with wire.

The first exhibition, Pedestrian, a group show curated by Jaime Tsai, took place in the Rayner Hoff Space at the National Art School from 5th to the 7th of August. Here, the works on paper were exhibited alongside the ceramic drawings (wall hung).

(Scroll through to the end for an Artist Statement)

Following the Pedestrian show, the ceramic drawings were reconfigured into a single, large table-based drawing, which also incorporated the following three dimensional objects and pencil drawing on the table itself. This work was exhibited in Drawn to Form: the Matter in Hand at Blacktown Art Centre, a group show curated by Abdullah M.I. Syed and Merran Esson, which ran from the 20th of August to the 3rd of October 2015. A catalogue documenting the exhibition is available from the Blacktown Art Centre.

artist statement
some products require assembly

Intrigued by the possibility of one (or several) things becoming another, and images or objects on the border between legibility and abstraction, I make visual puzzles.

I’m interested in ‘things’, un-nameable objects or ambiguous images that lie outside the mediation of language and culture. They offer a direct experience where meaning is open, and create a momentary pause in this fast-paced world of visual overload.

This series of works emerges from a matrix, formed by the outlines of products traced randomly from Bunnings Warehouse catalogues. I paint over this with ink, filling positive or negative spaces with tone, or I build up from it with clay, coiling line into form. This process starts intuitively, but as the work progresses images or objects begin to emerge. In this puzzle-like journey you never know what you will find. Hints of a landscape, an interior, or a still life can be partly teased out. Later, I make drawings on the ceramic forms, or attach wire, to create assemblages suggesting other possible spaces and alternate readings. Through this process, the familiar becomes unfamiliar.

I love the idea that the viewer’s interpretation cannot be right or wrong. What you see depends on what you’re looking for, or even who you are. The resulting drawings and ceramics forms are about visual perception. My aim is to capture or even create a feeling of uncertainty, or a situation which is irresolvable.

tania rollond
august 2015