Loris Quantock33° 59.4" south Description: Christmas Bush "Sticks are really nice things if you care to take a look at them" Loris Quantoc has been working with sticks since 2001. What started as a very personal, somewhat meditative engagement with the landscape has expanded to a strong visual expression blurring installation and assemblage. In essence Loris' sticks fall between two traditions in art history: one coming from the land art movement of the 1970s, best described through the work of British artist Richard Long and his epic documented walks through the countryside; and the second, a lyric engagement with the harshness and fragile balance of the Australian landscape. While we typically think of our landscape in romantic terms for its open expanse, Loris turns to an intimate engagement with the scrubby landscape that surrounds Sydney. She names her assemblages after the location of her material collected over a slow walk. For this piece, she chose the delicate twigs of Christmas Bush collected near La Perouse. This process of collecting is key. Loris explains how 'windy days are great', where that encounter is heightened as leaf litter seems to dance at her feet. For me, looking at this artwork I can't but help feel that randomness remains alive and activates the white gallery wall. The way the sticks move back and forward on their support has a rhythm like a metronome, which echoes the pace of walking. It is a predictable balance that is even more obvious at night when their shadows add another dimension to this wonderful installation. Only using natives, Loris feels there is a strong environment concept at the heart of her work - that our landscape is fragile and we must not foresake it. Indeed a timely message as we face the Copenhagen talks. The sticks become ambiguous at this small scale. One is unsure what they are at first glance. With closer observation we can appreciate their patina, weathered, aged, spindly and twisted they are individual in their drawn form. This is the most ambitious work Loris has produced to date, stretching 3.36 meters and pushing the eye to the edges of the gallery space. And, while its spiny flicker creates a certain dramatic tension, this line has incredible sureness and a graceful knowing. It is not a horizon that Loris hopes to evoke, but rather a beginning and an end. Foremost, it is about moving through a landscape. In this respect this piece is an extremely considered site-specific work for SLOT. Here our engagement is indeed that same passage of a walk. |
