Adelaide Contemporary Experimental (ACE) has recently announced Lee Salomone as the recipient of the 2024 Porter Street Commission.
Now in its fourth year, the Porter Street Commission annually awards $20,000 to a South Australian artist at any stage of their career to create an ambitious new work, presented as a solo exhibition at ACE the following year.
Lee Salomone, August 2023. Photograph: Rosina Possingham. Courtesy Adelaide Contemporary Experimental, South Australia
Applications for the 2024 Porter Street Commission were considered by a selection panel composed of ACE’s Associate Curator Rayleen Forester; Clothilde Bullen (Curator and Head of Indigenous Programs at the Art Gallery of Western Australia); and Billy Tang (Executive Director & Curator at Para Site, Hong Kong):
“Applicants showed a depth of understanding and concern for some of today’s most pressing issues. It was a pleasure to engage with, and better understand, the practices of such dedicated South Australian artists. Focused on the experiences of migration and how cultural heritage plays a role in connecting with communities, Salomone’s thoughtful submission speaks to the ways in which story-telling and art-making drive one another in experiential ways, often creating new histories.”
Salomone works in a range of media, including installation, photography, sculpture and works on paper. He is interested in the experience of first and second-generation Italian migrants. Transforming found objects and lived moments into new spatial and visual contexts, Salomone makes use of familiar materials to create new narratives.
Salomone’s large-scale installation, comprising found and hand-crafted bronze metal objects, will investigate the migrant identity and its nuanced relationship with settler histories, attempting to reframe these stories through topics that include family bonds, flora to feed and heal, and the transformation of oral and cultural traditions.
“The 2024 Porter Street Commission will fund a deeper engagement with my practice and professional objectives. I’m driven by a desire to understand the unknown and experimenting with material functionality,” says Salomone. “I’ve strived to build a national practice whilst being based in Adelaide, and can see how this Commission will provide even greater momentum for opportunities nationally.”
Represented by Gallerysmith, Melbourne, Salomone has been curated into more than sixty group exhibitions and presented over thirty solo presentations nationally and internationally.
