The Oats Factory in Perth presents, ‘Alight’ – an exhibition that explores the transformation of identity in our globalised, post-national world. Curated by Darryn Ansted and Simon Cox, ‘Alight’ provides a variety of representations of cultural identity, cross-cultural transformations, migrant experiences, and post-colonial and post-communist theory through contemporary methods of painting, photography and installation.
A geographically diverse group of artists – Hoda Afshar, Darryn Ansted, Nathan Beard, Ogi Naidansuren, Hitesh Natalwala, Fran Rhodes and Caitlin Woods – create works that respond to contemporary issues of identity and multiculturalism, which speaks beautifully here in the context of Australia’s multicultural and fluid identity. The exhibition shares personal insights into the thoughts and journeys of these artists, all of whom have moved – and still do move – between countries and cultures.
These seven artists produce works that motivate the viewer into a critical analysis of their own identity and how they are perceived by and relate to the wider society. Curator and artist, Darryn Ansted, experiments with colour, perception and image to create abstract works that deconstruct cultural ideologies and questions their ethical dimensions. Hitesh Natalwala, working in collage, contends with his own history of migration and its impact on his cultural identity. The works in the exhibition seem to be a direct response to current cultural issues in Western Australia. Each artist is based in Perth and is aware of the intense levels of migration in Australia and its role in the transformation of our cultural identity and is concerned with the process of re-configuring cultural forms as a means of re-generation.
Fran Rhodes creates hand-coloured photographic prints of gardens that she wallpapers into a small room, engulfing the viewer in a composed heterotopic environment. Her garden images create a sub-culture – a third world – that allows the viewer to transcend their own identities to better understand their place in the world.
Rhodes draws on the notion of space and place in relation to self-identity and collective-identity; “in exploring these notions I draw on the traditions of domestic decoration from the UK as well as Persian carpets and the Garden legacy of Colonialism”, she explains. The traditional garden of the Persians was a sacred space that was supposed to bring together, inside its rectangle, four parts representing the four parts of the world. And carpets were originally reproductions of gardens – a sort of garden that can move wherever its owner takes it.
The symmetry and mirror effect in Rhodes’ images explore the hybrid nature of cultures and personal identities these days. Her work attempts to resolve questions of ‘identity’ for people assimilating into a new country and making it ‘home’. The works challenge those people to place themselves within the new context and embrace jointly their new home’s culture and their background.
The Oats Factory
March 24 to April 22, 2012
Darryn Ansted, Occupy, 2011, oil on linen, 70 x 51cm
Fran Rhodes, Gardens, 2011, hand coloured photographic print, dimensions variable
