Exhibition Artworks

Artist: Sheila Annis - "Portals"
Cotton lawn columnar suspensions, Each 9.6 m x 75 cm diameter

"Pain is distressing.  Pain is debilitating. When we think of pain we all too often
simply think of the physicality of pain. But psychosomatic pain can never be
underestimated. Pain works to disconnect us from ourselves as much as from
others. It is made worse by isolation. Pain is my motivation to create art.

This installation plays with experience on several levels. In entering the installation
the viewer is positioned to experience isolation. At the same time the viewer will
recognise that others will be having the same experience. Coming to awareness
that isolation only works to compound pain can be liberating.

In entering the installation, the eye of the viewer will travel from its grounded
starting point to the upper limits of the space. The installation can be viewed as
portals to another dimension, which provide a serene environment for meditation."  

 

Artist: Peter O'Doherty - "Living Alone "
Acrylic on canvas, 56 cm x 66 cm

"Living Alone depicts a typical Central Coast fibro cottage.  It’s about loneliness
and depression. The occupant may have no partner or family, or could be an
elderly person living out their last years alone in the house."  

 

Artist: Ann Thomson - "Viewpoint"
Oil on glass, 106 cm x 46 cm

"I found this window on the street, where I acquire much of the material I need
for making sculpture.  It is not in my nature, as an artist, to illustrate pain as
subject matter, but rather to paint something that deflects from it. I have always
been interested, for instance, if the way Henri Matisse and Emile Nolde painted
their most beautiful works in the face of adversity during wartime."  

 

Artist: Barbara Campbell - "Hear and I Shall Speak Quadratych"
Pencil and ink, Perspex on board, 106 cm x 46 cm

"Natural disasters in poor countries drew me to the book of Job, which I had
previously studied only as literature.  Job offers no easy answers to the injustice
of his time and place, or to ours, but I decided to use this pure poetry in a
multi-layered work expressing the incomprehensibility of a world that leaves
so many with nothing, not even hope.

My work has been multi-layered in technique and meaning for decades but this
is my first use of actual space to separate original text (Job’s) from my own
marks of despair and pain at today’s reality.

And can logarithms find the truth in what cannot be grasped by the human mind?"  

 

Artist: Denese Oates - "Pain Shadow"
Copper sculpture, ironwood base, 190 cm X 78 cm x 60 cm

"Pain may be emotional or physical, but whatever form it takes it is usually
not immediately visible from the outside.

Pain Shadow is an abstract sculpture, yet has an element of anthropomorphism.
The internal contours of pain have taken on a spiky, brutal persona whilst the
outward appearance manifests as a fragile vine-like sheath of calm protectiveness.

The internal and external shapes are interrelated with a rhythmic subtlety which
recollects the relationship of pain with the sufferer."  

 

Artist: Ian Smith - "October, Young Women Going In"
Oil and acrylic on canvas, 120 cm x 115 cm

"This is painted from a momentary image that stayed with me, seen while
touring various historic buildings for entirely different reasons.  Originally a
hospital, I guess the building is now a hostel for young women. Yet the moment
suggested women in need, in pain, going in.  Maybe it is a clinic or a respite
haven.  The image inspired me to paint (what I think is) a beautiful painting
of a living situation of young women, the complex lattice of life and I guess,
it is October – the jacaranda is blooming again – life beyond pain springs eternal!"  

 

Artist: Vince Vozzo - "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"
Pastel, charcoal and acrylic on paper, 99 cm x 43 cm

"The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is about the observation of the Prince to the
Swallow in Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince: “More marvellous than anything is
the suffering of men and women.  There is no Mystery so great as Misery."  

 

Artist: Leah King-Smith - "Deep Sense"
Pigemnt ink on cotton rag (archival), 100 cm x 100 cm

"Pain as a theme, however broad, is not an easy or light concept to consciously
address. I could “speak” about pain with the intention to communicate
uncomfortable or distressing physical and emotional feelings. I could speak about
pain conceptually by way of its link to cultures and beliefs. My intention in this
case was to create a work that involved light, was meditative and contemplative,
and inspired a deep connection to the self."  

 

Artist: Christine Shoji - "Women's Pain Gown"
Mixed media, 170 cm x 50 cm x 50 cm

"Pain both physical and emotional is a constant companion for many women -
love and suffering for children, broken hearts and associated pain of childbirth,
periods, depression, migraine, breast cancer, genital mutilation.

I surveyed women friends about women’s pain and decided to create a wearable
artwork.  The local charity shop yielded a lovely (?) nightgown in white nylon with
pink flowers and gauze netting. From local chemists I scrounged empty blister packs
of medication. The vast number shocked me.   I sewed the types of physical and
emotional pain using cord, onto old bandages.  The blister packs were stitched
together with the breast cancer ribbon in between and attached to the bodice behind
gauze netting.  Neurofen packages line the breast area of Wanda, the mannequin
who is dressed to go out but carries her hidden pain within her."  

 

Artist: Chia Moan & John Acton - "Pain Scrolls "

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