LIGHT THROW (MIRRORS) FOLD
EXHIBITION OPENING & BOOK LAUNCH | TUESDAY 21 JUNE, 6-8PM
Jacky Redgate, Light Throw (Mirrors) Fold b, 2013-14, chromogenic photograph, 126 x 158 cm.
ARC ONE Gallery is delighted to present a new exhibition by one of Australia’s most significant contemporary artists, Jacky Redgate. Light Throw (Mirrors) Fold will open on Tuesday 21 June, 6-8pm, with the Melbourne Launch of the Power Publications monograph, Jacky Redgate: Mirrors. The book will be formally launched by Dr Edward Colless, Head of Critical and Theoretical Studies, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne.
Jacky Redgate’s Light Throw (Mirrors) Fold / Unfold is the latest instalment in her mirror-works project. It follows hard on the heels of her Mirrors exhibition at the University Art Gallery at the University of Sydney last year. Redgate’s studio still-life photography experiments continue her long-standing interests in window display and product lighting, reflections and optical illusions. In the early Light Throw (Mirrors) Fold photographs, she explores the optical interplay of mirrors and everyday objects (striped plates, rulers, dominoes) attached to a folding screen.
In Unfold (2016), Redgate attempts to escape the visual vortex of her screen and mirrors, by displaying a doll, coasters, spoons, and a child’s sewing machine on pink velvet in the fold of her screen. It has been 36 years since Redgate last played with dolls in her work. Is she giving the subject of her recent photograph Miss Pears’ Contest Photographs 1959 — herself at age 3 — toys to play with, or is something else afoot? This new work connects Redgate’s well-known interest in the mirror photographs of Florence Henri with her little-known interest in American photographer Dare Wright, author of the 1957 children’s book The Lonely Doll.
With a practice extending over 35 years, Jacky Redgate has established herself as an artist at the forefront of contemporary Australian art. Working across photographic and object-based practices, Redgate has exhibited extensively within Australia and internationally since the end of the 1970s. Selected solo exhibitions include: Jacky Redgate: Mirrors, University Art Gallery, the University of Sydney (2015); Jacky Redgate: the Logic of Vision, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2012); Visions From Her Bed, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2008); Jacky Redgate: Life of the System 1980–2005, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2005–06); and Jacky Redgate: Survey 1980–2003, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia, Adelaide (2004). She is a recipient of the 1st prize, Bowness Photography Prize, Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne (2011). Her work is included in major national collections and survey exhibitions including two Australian Perspecta exhibitions, three Biennales of Sydney, the Clemenger Art Award at the National Gallery of Victoria (2006), and the Heide Museum of Modern Art’s Cubism & Australian Art (2009). Jacky Redgate is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts, English and Media, University of Wollongong, Australia.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
JACKY REDGATE: MIRRORS
This 2016 publication is an important new monograph with texts by Robert Leonard and Ann Stephen, which focuses on Redgate’s eminent work with mirrors in recent decades and will be available for purchase on the night. Jacky Redgate: Mirrors is co-published by Power Publications with the University Art Gallery, The University of Sydney, in partnership with the University of Wollongong.
Jacky Redgate: Mirrors was generously funded by the University of Wollongong, Vice Chancellor Challenge Grant and Faculty funding.