The Upside-down River
Rituals of Embodied Knowing, 2023
cbOne Gallery
Chapman & Bailey
1C Marine Parade, Abbotsford
Chapman & Bailey
1C Marine Parade, Abbotsford
The work Upside Down River is drawn from the
experience of walking along and swimming in the Birrarung (Yarra) river during
the Victorian lockdowns of 2021. The
fresco skins are made on a purpose-built wall and then waxed to reveal the
sedimentary like crazing that emerges in the curing process when the lime-based
render re-sequesters the carbon that was driven off during slaking. In this sense the stone skin evokes the
idea of breathing, along with the continual movement of moisture through the
wall. Swathes of umber dyed muslin evoke
the suspended clay of the upside-down river, and the accretion of grit on the
linen circle beneath references both the history of landscape painting and the
continual movement of silt in the formation and disintegration of land and
water. When the grit is collected and
reground into the body of the new fresco skin, the cycle will begin again. The
hexagonal form of the installation recalls the radial basalt columns that
typify the geological formation local to the area. The work will continue to
shed and change each time it is moved, just as the river swells and subsides in
response to the season.
– Sarah Tomasetti, 2023
– Sarah Tomasetti, 2023