New show draws on life’s changes

A VISUAL artist is reframing a decades’ worth of works as part of the latest exhibition at Creswick’s Tin Can Collective.

Running until Sunday 27 August, Loris Button’s Archive show displays 17 framed drawings and prints in what she said recontextualises their initial themes.

“The first collection I looked at included lots of skulls and how we deal with mortality,” she said.

“Once I finished that work I moved away from drawing skulls all the time and towards how our identity is shaped.

“It’s about how we live in contemporary society, and how we age, and everything eventually changes. Death is an inevitable reality. There’s nothing surer.”

Some of the works were previously featured in shows like the Art Gallery of Ballarat’s Romancing the Skull and a touring display called From the Bower: Patterns of Collecting.

Button has explored skulls and the subject of mortality since earning PhD in Visual Arts at Federation University, where she taught for about 20 years afterwards.

Most of the drawings were recreated from previous lino cuts.

Button’s works around identity were inspired by her time spent in places like India, Korea, the Netherlands, and Spain, which she said are reflected in the patterns of each piece.

“They’re about ideas, patterns, places, and how they interact with the way we live,” she said.

“If you travel, you end up in a different culture as an outsider and it’s an interesting way to look at things.

“I want to address the dichotomy between the self as a fixed and knowable whole and the fluidity of time and identity in culture.”