After more than five amazing years in Glebe it is with mixed emotions that we announce Salerno Gallery will be moving to a new space. Glebe has been absolutely wonderful […]
“Down the Rabbit Hole” by Sal Higgens
4th – 23rd March, 2014
Opening Night:
Thursday 6th of March, 6.00 – 8.00pm
Salerno Gallery is proud to present in “Down the Rabbit Hole” a solo exhibition by Sal Higgens in association with Art Month Sydney 2014.
In 2013 Sal Higgens was awarded the prestigious Hill End Residency by Bathurst Regional Art Gallery. Her investigation into the folklore of the underworld continues her with “Down the Rabbit Hole”, a new foray into the abyss. The works on display are from both the body of work produced there and new paintings from her Auckland studio.
Focusing on the way in which we experience a connection to ancient stories on a psychological and philosophical level she has begun literally collaging images found images from discarded nursery rhyme books, redrawing them and repeating them in her paintings. Using cutting as a form of authorship, editing them, removed from their context, placed on a new stage, she becomes the author of a new story and introduces new protagonists.
Repetition as element of selective intention is described by Jonathan Ree as a “deliberate seeking, demanding or questing”. Through this fracturing and fragmenting of reality she uncovers an uneasy space. Juxtaposing the undying permanence of a sense of narrative through its repetition, with its transience (as is the nature of sounds) as it is retold and disseminated through its re-telling.
Her voice has changed tone in these works. It is perhaps more whimsical, experimental, yet remains challenging and unflinching. Paring down and refining the images, she maintains an ardent gaze on an elusive ancient narrative as she pursues it down the rabbit hole.
“Repetition is the element in which language lives: a speaking voice is always intrinsically an infinitely redoubled echo… Repeating something heard [be it story or idea] is a way of opening a dialogue and participating in the language of the original speaker.”
As each image resonates in our heads, reflected and redoubled, we are gradually transformed from observers into participators, and as we leave the space; the echo.
