Exhibition dates: 28th July – 21st August 2010
Installation view of Night’s Plutonian Shore by Julia deVille at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Richmond
Photo: Marcus Bunyan
This is an excellent exhibition by Julia deVille at Sophie Gannon Gallery in Richmond. Compared to last year’s ‘shock and paw’ exhibition Cineraria reviewed on this blog, this exhibition shows a commendable sense of restraint, a beautiful rise and fall in the work as you walk around the gallery space with the exhibits displayed on different types and heights of stand and a greater thematic development of the conceptual ideas within the work. There are some exquisite pieces.
From the bejewelled Golden Gosling (2010), the goose that wears the gold not lays it to the cute stillborn fawn Lenore (2010), named after Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same name that discusses “the proper decorum in the wake of the death of a young woman, described as “the queenliest dead that ever died so young”,” (Wikipedia text) there is a delicacy to these sculptures that seemed absent in the last exhibition. The sleeping fawn wears a little golden bridle and is covered in golden hearts, the harness bringing in the element of control (of life, of death, of the body, of identity) into the pieces not seen in the earlier work. This sense of control is reinforced in other pieces in the exhibition including the three pieces Charon (2010), Nevermore (2010) and Kitten drawn hearse (2010, see photographs below).
In Charon the kitten has an amazing beaded saddle and stirrups to allow the occupant to control the dead stead because in Greek mythology Charon is the ferryman who carries the souls of the newly deceased across the river Styx. Nevermore also features the saddle and bridle whilst the standout piece of the whole exhibition, Kitten drawn hearse just wows you with it’s delicacy and showmanship – the plume atop the harnessed kitten’s head faithfully replicating the dressage of a Victorian horse drawn funeral cortege.
In these pieces there is a simplification of the noise of the earlier works and in this simplification a conversant intensification of the layering of the conceptual ideas. Playful and witty the layers can be peeled back to reveal the poetry of de Sade, the stories of Greek mythology and the amplification of life force that is at the heart of these works.
Good stuff.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Edwin and Sophie Gannon Gallery for allowing me publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Another well considered response to the exhibition can be found on Karen Thompson’s Melbourne Jeweller blog.
Julia deVille (Australian, b. 1982)
Nameless here for evermore
2010
Emu egg, black garnet beads, sterling silver, bronze, enamel paint, egret feathers
31 x 16 x 16cm
Courtesy Sophie Gannon Gallery
Julia deVille (Australian, b. 1982)
Golden Gosling
2010
Julia deVille (Australian, b. 1982)
Ghastly grim and ancient raven
2010
Julia deVille (Australian, b. 1982)
Nevermore
2010
Still-born fawn, black garnet beads, sterling silver, coque feathers, chain mail, glass
27 x 41 x 59cm
Courtesy Sophie Gannon Gallery
Julia deVille (Australian, b. 1982)
Charon
2010
Kitten, hematite beads, mystic spinel beads, sterling silver, chain mail, glass
30 x 12 x 19cm
Courtesy Sophie Gannon Gallery
Julia deVille (Australian, b. 1982)
Lenore
2010
Stillborn fawn, black garnet beads, sterling silver, gold plate, glass
35 x 17 x 12cm
Courtesy Sophie Gannon Gallery
Julia deVille (Australian, b. 1982)
Kitten drawn hearse
2010
Kitten, black garnet beads, sterling silver, egret feathers, wood, glass
83 x 30 x 15cm
Courtesy Sophie Gannon Gallery
Julia deVille (Australian, b. 1982)
Bird or beast
2010
Ostrich skeleton, ostrich feathers, smoky quartz, sterling silver, leather and wood
Courtesy Sophie Gannon Gallery
Sophie Gannon Gallery
2, Albert Street, Richmond, Melbourne
Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm
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