The Arthouse Gallery represents and exhibits the work of emerging and established contemporary Australian artists. If you visit their stand at the Melbourne Art Fair, B70, you will see on display a number of its represented artist’s works. Fopr example, Carla Hananiah’s capturing of the beauty of nature and our relationship to its bewildering force, playing with natural light and shadow; Jon Eiseman’s sculpture extending beyond the physical, encompassing notions of time, spirituality and emotion with his figurative sculpture, cast in bronze, creating a poetic quality; Hobie Porter’s richly detailed landscapes which question sustainability and humanity’s intoxication by its own consumption; Joshua Yeldham’s exploration of a spiritual connection and journey into the Australian landscape; Dean Home’s still life paintings that embody values, tastes and time and appeal to the primary instincts of sex and human nature, of food and substance; Samantha Everton’s exploration of history, race and culture through a term she describes as ‘magical realism’; Belinda Fox and Neville French’s exploration of the duality of human nature, the potential for both creation and destruction, hope and despair and beauty and decay.
But before you view these works, you are first greeted with the fascinating miniatures of Sydney-artist Kendal Murray. Her use of found objects such as glass teapots, purses and mirror compacts to create fantasy realms on an extremely small scale are both fascinating and thought-provoking.
Murray is known as the ‘queen of miniatures’. She creates ‘ incongruous landscapes in which dreamlike narratives are performed by a multitude of miniature identities with big personalities’.
Murray produces a physical representation of psychological states – memories, day dreams, and fantasies. The idea of creating these miniature works stems from our dream-like states and how we are able to play with our own identities. Murray’s miniature worlds create a metaphor for internal thought and the use of found objects is a vehicle to look into this inner space. The fantasy realms and their dream states allow the viewer to identify with a number of identities and characters. It allows them to play with different ideas and scenarios and be projected into that created world. The use of compact mirrors allows the viewer to see their own reflection and various point of views of themselves and the work. It creates a parallel experience and a parallel world. The compact mirrors, purses and teapots expose our own personal narratives and our own idiosyncrasies.
Each work is a snapshot of different social and cultural experiences, from a wedding, to gardening, to nude sunbathing. Murray likes to see the humour in things. She enjoys old comedies and musicals because they are elevated and upbeat and Murray uses the tone of these storylines and projects them in her work.
Undoubtedly, these miniature works will fascinate and spark curiosity into the happenings of these micro worlds Murray has created. If you fail to identify with them, or at the very least be intrigued, then I suggest you look closer.
