2015 AirSpace Projects
Sally Clarke, My Pink Bush and the Lost Limb (Blackheath), 2004, acrylic paint on dollhouse floorboard print, 2004, Photo: David Paterson.
Picking up from where she left off nearly seven years ago, Sally Clarke revisits the theme of the Australian Bush, an idea that is persistently characterised by grand master narratives, where libidinous landscapes – framed in feminine metaphors – submit to male desires and conquests. In this body of work, which takes a range of forms, she commandeers this trope and amplifies it just a little further in order to subvert it. Growing up on a farm on the outskirts of Goulburn and later in the ‘Bush Capital’, it is a theme that remains close to her heart.
She Bush, 2015. installation view.
She Bush, 2015. Installation view. Photo: Fiona Susanto.
She Bush, 2015, installation view. Photo: Fiona Susanto.
Bush Incantation, 2015, plasticine on wall, 300 x 400cm. Photo: Fiona Susanto.
Bush Incantation, 2015, (detail), plasticine. Photo: Fiona Susanto.
Tree Entropy (just the beginning), Bush Rocks (L) and She Bush. Photo: Fiona Susanto.
Origin of the World (Lapstone Tunnel), 2015, acrylic paint on canvas. Photo: Fiona Susanto.
She Bush (branch), 2015, acrylic paint, wood. Photo: Fiona Susanto.
Labiaphone and Nedella Kelly helmet, 2015, wood, plastic bottle tops, cardboard, acrylic paint. Photo: Fiona Susanto.
Stick and Log Sketches, 2004. gouache, graphite on paper. Various dimensions. Photo: Fiona Susanto
My Pink Bush and the Lost Limb 2, 2015, acrylic paint on floor vinyl. Photo: Fiona Susanto. Private Collection.
She Bush, 2015. Photo: Andre Smits.
Lisa Bluthal performs She Bush, 2015. Costume created by Sally Clarke. Photo: Jane Polkinghorne, Instagram.