Chiranjika Grasby (SA), Fuko Suzuki (SA) and Haneen Martin (SA/NT)
Gallery 0 18/5/18 – 15/6/18
A commonality exists for women of colour in Western society, relating prominently to experiences of otherness and exposure to an exotisied male gaze. Scrutinizing these realities has, for many, become a tool for survival and reclamation. A-Kin discusses these realities and attempts to create physical analogues for emotional responses, allowing the artists to regain a sense of control over their own identities.
This exhibition transforms Sister into a space that seeks to be equally comforting and fragmented, creating a disjointed sense of familiarity. Everyday objects are offset in peculiar forms, painted figures dance across canvas in a ritualistic manner, and the human body – or lack thereof – becomes a device to explore personal narrative.
Adelaide based Chiranjika Grasby works through sculpture, installation, and video performance to explore personal notions of identity and place. Her practice provides an exploration into her Sri Lankan x Chinese x European heritage, creating a visual response to the ongoing cultural disconnect that remains within. Influenced by symbolism, ritual, and differing social behaviours, Grasby studies the correlations between century old tradition and contemporary Australian life, attempting to juxtapose material opposites into potentially uncomfortable points of harmony. Often her works transform into multimedia self portraits; becoming a device to record her experiences, or physically incorporating elements of her own body.
Within Fuko’s art practice, her aim is to create paintings as fake artifacts: recordings of a place that doesn’t exist. Her work is a product of a cross cultural individual who has never truly belonged: a reflection of a place with no brackets or limits, portraying the familiar with unexpected colors and patterns. Her work carries a sense of nowhere but everywhere place in a dream-like state. Fuko works on re-establishing rituals and creating her own myth through exploring and carrying on female tradition/magic in the actions of sewing, weaving and dress making. In both her practices in painting and object making, she emphasizes an importance of tactile craft, the process of making and creation of the hands with a ritualistic attitude towards the make belief.
Haneen Martin is a South Australian artist, curator and producer based in the Northern Territory. She embraces a physical style of art making, requiring intensely tactile processes in order to engage with her culture and the world around her, following her own ethos: If you can create your own environments, you cannot be an outsider. Haneen utilises these processes to tap into her Arab and Malay roots, as a means of formulating a personal and mystical connection between the artist, the work and the viewer. Haneen’s work in A.kin is a deeper exploration of what it means to be an outspoken woman of colour in Australia ranging from negotiating pride in her culture while recognising and examining the higher beauty standards we hold ourselves to in order to be accepted in our day-to-day lives.
Images by Alycia Bennett.