Of hope and longing

Solo exhibition

Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, 15 May - 27 June 2020

You can read the exhibition text by Daniel Mudie Cunningham here.

Taking inspiration from Garth Brooks’ Australian rock alter ego Chris Gaines’, Dolly Parton’s lyricism and Keith Urban’s Instagram account, this exhibition appropriated the aesthetics and materiality of country music to unpack the growth, stoicism, longing and hope the genre nurtured throughout my childhood in rural Queensland. 'Of hope and longing' draws upon my agricultural upbringing, folding place and materiality together to make new work. This exhibition was created during the COVID-19 Australia wide lockdown. Recognising that people were not going to be able to visit the gallery, the work was also presented online through the galleries Instagram account via a series of 3 live steamed desktop performances. They engaging with the Goulburn local community by requesting their own submissions in the form of drawings, videos and photos, that were then used to inform and be shown within the work. Creating new works within the context of Goulburn’s digital, physical, social and psychological terrain, this exhibition explored complex identities – enmeshed in associative memory and meaning.