Talitha Kennedy

Hand Held Lands

Solo show at Nomad Art Gallery
5 - 27 April 2013

In this body of work Darwin based artist Talitha Kennedy examines the human relationship with nature in small sculptures and drawings.

Talitha Kennedy’s small hand-stitched sculptures are inspired by the idea of holding a mini-world in your hands.

‘Humans have the power to make big changes to the world. The capability of our technologies give us the power to destroy the land –deforest, make a huge hole in the ground for mining, avert rivers to dam, move mountains for roads. Geographic forms are themselves in transition, formed by moving tectonic plates in constant states of erosion as everything transforms by entropy.

The land as a body, an organism –alive and with spirit’

http://www.nomadart.com.au/Talitha+Kennedy

Mangrove Cluster, 2013. Kangaroo leather, thread & gravel. 14 (h) x 12 x 12 cm.

Holding Hole, 2013. Kangaroo leather, thread & gravel. 8 (h) x 14 x 13cm.

Pounding Mountains, 2013. Kangaroo leather, thread & gravel. 10 (h) x 15 x 14cm.

Mangrove Protrusions (Pnuemetaphores, Propagules, Mangals), 2013. Kangaroo leather, thread & gravel. Dimensions variable from approx 20 - 13 cm height.

New Territories Nov 2012

I received a judges prize at the 24HR ART: NT Centre for Contemporary Art end of year survey 'New Territories' for a collection of works I'd been playing with since experiments in New York studio time. I keep being strangely attracted to bits of concrete I come across and 'growing' fleshy planty organicy forms over them. I call these works Tricks to build earth into flesh.

End of the World

The very lovely folks in fab Adelaide ARI Fontanelle invited me to the End of the World so I drew a big hole. Overcoming the anxiety that life as we know it would end we still made a great show and party that lasted way over the midnight dong from December 21 2012.
www.fontanelle.com.au

Talitha Kennedy, Hope that the world would end when people say it will, 2012. Ink on paper. 78x78cm.

Printmaking night class

Second semester 2012 completed a Charles Darwin University's Visual Art unit in Printmaking. I really loved scratching into metal, acid etching and then playing around with colour inks, yes, colour.

my four colour reduction lino print

an etched plate

black ink etching

rainbow colour variations on my rhizome monster etching

yum

Art on Wheels

September 2012 I was one of a party for DVAA's 'Art on Wheels' project, a super art-mobile that brought an all-sorts of contemporary art practices to Darwin's suburban hotspots.

My contribution: 'Swelter Shelter creates an extended space for Art on Wheels where a large cowhide of tanned black leather forms a tent like enclosure at the rear of the van. The leather has been cut to suggest the forms of shadow and light that tree canopies cast on the ground, like a flayed skin of the visible. This dark visceral canopy shields our own skin from the sweltering sun while drawing attention to the destruction that other life forms suffer for our comfort.'

artonwheels.hotglue.me
www.dvaa.net.au

Togart Contemporary Art Award 2012

Thrilled to have my lovely monster in the selection for NT's most glamorous contemporary art prize.

www.togartaward.com.au

opening party 7 September 2012

my catalogue page

Struggle Mountain, 2012. Kangaroo leather, thread, stuffing and timber. 65x50x50cm.

June-July 2012: NYC

Six very splendid worldly-wising weeks in New York, spent on residency in fabulous live-in bespoke studio as part of Point B Worklodge, deep in hipster central North 7^th Street Williamsburg. In amongst the flanuer wanderings, uber-show seeing and beautiful people meeting I even made a bit of work to show at the Open Studios night.

Central Park wilderness

me reflected in Tomás Saraceno's 'Cloud City' on Roof at Metropolitan Museum

MoMa PS1 Warm Up party

my live-in studio wonderland

the working bit

studio show

Point B Worklodge open studios

ink on paper drawing

leather and found bricks/concrete

...all the way home :(

dOCUMENTA 13

in late May 2012 I assisted Fiona Hall with the installation of her work commissioned for Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany. The installation took place in a pre-fab house in the Karlsaue Park. We painted the whole interior in combat uniform camouflage patternings and the exterior with camouflage patterns used on battleships. The works included Fiona's incredibly detailed taxidermy-style 'trophies' of endangered animals on the United Nationa IUN Red List and reconstructed using the habitat nation's defense force uniform. The interior space felt like a hunter's den or amateur museum, an atmosphere filled with a wonder for the natural world and a sense of imminent death and conflict. It was an amazing experience and privilege to be involved with the construction of such a powerful and moving installation as well as glimpse the vigor and depth of practice that achieves such works. I'm sure it will strengthen the rigor of my own practice. Documenta opened on June 9 and I stayed an extra week taking in the huge array of work and installation spaces. I was left with a deep impression for the possibilities of art to change the/a world in re-reading the past to create new narratives of individual voice.

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/812136/fiona-hall-reveals-the-secrets-of-her-documenta-hunters-den-1

Arnhem Land, May 2012

Receiving the Qantas Award made travel possible for research, professional development and experiences to enrich my practice. Before heading OS I spent some time in Arnhem Land to deeper understand the sense of place in the Top End through indigenous culture and community life. I volunteered for two weeks at Mardbalk Arts & Craft on Goulburn Island, West Arnhem and visited Buku-Larrngay Mulka in North East Arnhem (my most heart-raising art centre for exciting new work), wanting to really amp up my culture shock when in the built environments of Germany and New York!
http://www.mardbalkarts.com.au/
http://www.yirrkala.com/