Semiprecious is a duo exhibition by local artists, Karri McPherson and Katie Wagner. Having met whilst undertaking their Bachelor degrees, Karri and Katie have been developing their individual arts practices’ for the past three years.
Semiprecious brings these two abstract styles together for the first time, where their paintings discuss the relationships between the environment and memory. Works were exhibited through out September, 2017.
Within Semiprecious, Karri and Katie are exploring the idea that for people the environment exists through interacting with it, where memories and recollection play a large role in creating and defining certain experiences. There is a complex and dynamic exchange in which the environment a person is situated in can inform knowledge - certain experiences shape the way that these are known and remembered.
Through utilising hardedge abstraction, Karri is exploring a relationship between geometry and the environment. Through focusing on geometric cues extended by different environmental surfaces, she is investigating different natural and man-made phenomena that subtly incite her recent exploration of shape, form and colour. Through combining different regularities of form, Karri’s work explores symmetries inspired by everyday substances, such as contemporary architecture, intersecting streets and crystal formations. These different aspects of every day life inspire her current practice, where environmental geometry can provide a cue to self-perspective and understanding.
Through the construction of visual language, Katie’s current art series aims to visually encompass a variety of autobiographical memories within a single composition. Her work is currently looking at different varieties of conceptual representation from memories - recent and non-recent, clear and unclear, complete and incomplete. These different recollections are distinctive through her use of respective colours that relate directly to her past experiences, both felt and reflective. Katie aims to represent her treasured memories through the use of new methodologies, including abstraction, fragmentation, geometry and colour symbology. Her deconstruction of visual stimuli, specifically that of different Australiana landscapes, as well as the subtle nuances between slippages within her work, create unique forms and compositions.
Artists:
Karri McPherson
Katie Wagner
Opening Night Photography:
Joe Tredray
Installation Photography:
Kirsty Lee
