Aves ex Machina @ Beinart Gallery
I’m very proud to announce the opening of my solo show Aves ex Machina this Saturday night, September 27th, 5-8pm at Beinart Gallery in Melbourne.
During my journey toward this show I felt an extraordinary sense of gravitas and authenticity in the process, the creation of this complex world and its tiny-yet-mighty protagonists. This is a feeling beyond any I’ve had before. It feels, strangely, as though I’ve finally come home amidst these brave little beasts. As though they are where I’ve always been heading, and I’ve finally arrived.
I’m sure, for those who have followed my work for some time, where I am at this point isn’t too surprising a progression. But from the inside I find myself marvelling at where my path has led. I’ve always wondered at those I consider the great creators, artists like Shaun Tan, who craft extraordinary worlds and unique characters that emote beyond what any human representation can achieve. I don’t presume to stand shoulder to shoulder with their like, but I still sit here in awe of this very deep sense of ‘arrival’. Although, arrival is perhaps the wrong word as it feels so much more like I’ve finally found my beginning.
It feels surreal looking back on the crude beginnings of this little series. It was called Bellwether before it grew to be the ever-expanding entity that is now Aves ex Machina. From the early days of trying to balance my utterly unruly, complex and far-too-heavy multi-lens monocular prop on top of a poor taxidermy canary to produce Visionary, the seed from which all this has grown. How apt that name feels now.
C59 and I welcome you to step into our world and meet our feathered friends and fellow travellers. Aves ex Machina runs from Sunday September 28th to Sunday October 19th at Beinart Gallery, 307 Victoria St, Brunswick, VIC 3056. The online catalogue can be perused at www.beinart.org – payment plans and worldwide shipping are available.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Translated simply as ‘Birds from the Machine’, Aves ex Machina reimagines the ancient theatrical convention of Deus ex Machina: divine intervention at the last. In this world, no gods descend to save us. From the wreckage of the machine of human hubris, these unlikely feathered survivors claim their vestigial inheritance from those who once encaged them.
I intend to eventually write more thoroughly about the unfolding lore and world I find myself building for this series, but for now the two canary ‘castes’ that feature in this show are the Aurelians and the Prescient.
The ‘scout’ helmet design worn by C59 and her peers, designates the Aurelians (‘Golden Ones’), elite scouts and seekers of the Aves ex Machina featherhood. These creatures have sharp eyes, swift wings and keen senses. Their helmets have wide, spherical impact-resistant visors with a broad field of view. Their helmets hide sophisticated internal mechanisms that recycle respiratory moisture into drinking water for long voyages.
The ‘seer’ helmet, with its misty conical visor, designates the Prescient: agents of wisdom and advanced perception assigned to traverse post-human wastelands as witness and interpreter, documenting pivotal echoes of collapse for the collective Bellwether archive. The psycho-tech mysteries of these enigmatic helmets are a carefully guarded secret, known only to initiated Prescient.
