Creatives capture reflective works

ARTISTS from Western Victorian arts organisation Barking Spider Creative are calling a Ballarat gallery home this week.

Since Monday, artists Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane have held a residency at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, which will end on Sunday, 29 January.

Bartlau said the resulting project, titled A new lens: Creatives at work is a direct response to the Gallery’s Beating About the Bush exhibition.

“We came to the opening and were inspired by two or three works and from our conversations with the photographers,” she said.

“There was one artwork of a salt lake with ringbark, and that’s we have a stump centrally for the installation. We’re very concerned with degradation of the land which is a theme in the exhibition.

“The chandelier installation reflects the art by Nicole Welch, that surrealist part of the exhibition is really inspirational for us and connects with our work.

“The gaze [in these works] is really interesting so we’re playing with that with all the cameras in in our project. It’s looking at the lens on the lens, investigating it.”

With a ringbark stump collected around the duo’s Redbarn studio at the centre of the installation, additional materials include sundried sticks, and upcycled vintage cameras, doll body parts, a chandelier, and slide projector.

The project will evolve throughout the week, and although it will be a collaborative effort, Lehane said they will bring both their strengths to its development.

“I worked for many years as a set designer so I’ll be very much focused on setting up the flats and thinking about lighting,” he said.

“Penelope’s more about the installations and assemblage. By the weekend, this should be fully fledged, but we’re artists, we’re always tinkering.”