Melissa Harvey :: The Silent Pool
22 Aug - 4 Oct 2020
Gallery 5
Alongside my homeland runs a plunging waterfall. A sacred site within the Bagul Waajaarr Nature Reserve, on the land of the Gumbaynggirr people where the river flows underground tracing a fault line and returning upwards to feed a large pool – The Silent Pool. Memories of living in this landscape and the textures within the environment fill my senses, influencing my life and my art practice.
Now based in Sydney and affected by the city textures and light. I am drawn to hard mottled concrete, brick and bitumen surfaces sprayed and splattered with paint by graffiti artists and civil workers. I become immersed in the tracings of shadows, reflections of sunlight and sparkling night-light on water. I use the soft texture of cotton pulp and the application of layers to resemble these vivid textures and sensory memories.The cotton pulp medium is sourced from reused clothing and domestic cloth. The pulp is made through a beating process in a Hollander where the cloth passes through the machine repeatedly until it is reduced to fibres suspended in water. I discovered this process during my undergraduate degree in Fine arts at Southern Cross University, Lismore, completed in 2004.
The Silent Pool exhibition is an exploration in connection to place - uniting geographical histories; sensory memories; textural experiences and the processes within my art practice.
View exhibition sheet here>
www.melissajharvey.com