Pet Sounds, Mary Fokes
With the Renew Townsville project in full swing in the inner city, Umbrella Studio is suddenly surrounded by little galleries, studios and all manner of arts related enterprises, mainly driven by young graduates and emerging professionals. One could say Umbrella has competition in its own genre, making it even more important that its program remains outstanding. Buried Light is a dialogue between Robyn Sweeney and Bernadette Boscacci, artists who have been working in a creative partnership since 2000. Pet Sounds is a solo exhibition by emerging artist, Mary Fokes. The two exhibitions—entirely different in appearance—interrelate subtly in the joined exhibition space.
In Buried Light Sweeny and Boscacci show a large number of mostly medium and small works and sculptural pieces, with an emphasis on conceptual interrogation and visual experimentation. Both artists aim for abstraction. While their end results show confluences in form and use of materials—from antique Chinese gold thread to magnets, wood, found objects, minerals, agar as well as print and more conventional media—their pathways towards this are divergent.
Sweeney’s part includes three series of work: the Lissajous, Nano and Movement of fluids suites. The Lissajous curve, named after a 19th century French mathematician, is the driver of her investigation in the first set. Lissajous experimented with light and sound to create specific harmonic intervals. From this he derived mathematical formulae that—among many other forms—create curves made by pendulums. These are looped lines without end. Too often theoretical considerations truncate rather than further creativity, but in the Lissajous suite we witness a fruitful partnership. The artist uses her own body movement as both momentum and limitation of the perimeter of the looped lines, in various media from spidery webs