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I have always thought that gallery walls seem strange without the inevitable history of their use ghosted on each surface. Empty, somehow. Recently opened in brand new premises, Raw Space Gallery is full of pristine white walls that positively cry out to be coloured, dented, imprinted and defiled. Gleeful I was, to see what Brisbane artist, Freya Pinney would do to this virgin space in her most recent work, Reference Collection. Pinney is perhaps best known for her ‘tongue writing’; a process through which she paints themed, stream of consciousness texts with her tongue over surfaces such as Perspex, glass and more frequently, the female body. Reference Collection revisits this process of physical inscription; L’ecriture feminine in its most literal form.
On entering the installation, the viewer is plunged into an immediate darkness. At the far end of the room, a floor to ceiling video surveillance of an empty library aisle sways imperceptibly. The movement evokes a familiar, mild nausea; a seasickness common to the world of virtual reality. The colours of the projection are so luminous, so liquid, that one feels as if it would be possible to step straight from the darkness into the library. Under the futile yellow glow of a low wattage bulb, sits a stack trolley loaded with books. Nestled among these books is a small monitor screening footage from a previous performance in the library. Dressed in white, hooded suits that cover all but their faces, the artist moves in and out of the frame to scrawl unintelligible words over her model, slowly covering her face in thick blue food colouring.
The occasional ‘snap’ of looped footage repeating on both the projection screen