^{anti-aria for ater-}

^{The Atrium, Incinerator Gallery

180 Holmes Road, Aberfieldie
July 6 - Sep 8}

OVERVIEW:

anti-aria for ater- is the final instalment in a three-part series of exhibition reading rooms centred around genealogy, familial history, material and elemental kinships, and queer modes of reading and resistance.

This work draws from, while also representing an operatic break with, the paternal line of its previous two iterations: A sonourous draft; a lexicon of windjamming & To touch or strike a fondant ground. This concluding iteration centres feminist and autofictive psychogeographies of fire as they intersect with the history and architecture of the gallery’s incinerator, known colloquially as ‘The Destructor’.

The exhibition gathers around an etymological family, comprising the root word ‘ater’ meaning ‘fire’ (blackened by); ‘aria’ meaning ‘air’ and ‘song’ (typically a melody for a single voice); and the adjacent ‘atrium’: the main room of a house; the room which contains the hearth, from where the smoke of the hearth escapes.

The exhibition is an anti-proposition for solo expression, favouring expanded configurations of familial relations, material kinships and gendered experience, while attuning to the pyrotechnical tensions implicit in passages of extinction and extermination, rebirth and rejuvenation.

Envisioned as an expanded publication, this three-chapter ‘book’ cycles back to its beginning to round out with a coda, reflecting the adjacencies of water to fire in the afterlives of the artist’s grandparents and the site of the gallery itself.

The exhibition consists of a series of nine new works on paper alongside a limited edition risograph publication of new poetry and autofiction, printed by Stray Pages.

CENTRAL TEXT:

anti-aria for ater-
Black and moss unbound risograph artist book
20 pp + insert
150 x 280 mm
Envirocare 100% recycled paper
First edition, edition of 30
Printed by Stray Pages

PUBLIC PROGRAMMING:

Reading performance by Abbra Kotlarczyk and Autumn Royal
Saturday 31st August, 2024
Incinerator Gallery
Photographs by MJ Flamiano

The trees are the alphabet is on fire (BRACTS 1–9), 2023–4
Handmade willow charcoal, graphite, smoked vermiculite, rice glue, water and fire perforations on acid-free alpha-cellulose, corn, cotton, gampi, kozo and papyrus papers, Tasmanian oak, salvaged (unidentified) tree branches, found objects, alloy steel, polyester and latex straps, thread, fishing line, dimensions variable
Photograph by Christo Crocker

The trees are the alphabet is on fire (BRACTS 1–9), 2023–4
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

The trees are the alphabet is on fire (BRACTS 1–9), 2023–4
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

Book of grimoire (open/stolen field/poetics), 2024
Poa (tussock) grasses, found objects, sisal twine, dimensions variable
Photograph by Christo Crocker

Book of grimoire (open/stolen field/poetics), detail, 2024
Photograph byGianna Rizzo

Book of grimoire (open/stolen field/poetics), detail, 2024
Photograph byGianna Rizzo

Coda/when we disperse/we hold differently/under the tactics of water, 2024
Rain gauges, Maribyrnong River and Merri Creek water, smoked vermiculite, char-
coal, graphite, biochar, ash composite from Colophon/grand dada dada mama, 2024
5 units of 30.5 x 6.5 x 7cm each
Photograph by Christo Crocker

Coda/when we disperse/we hold differently/under the tactics of water, detail, September 2024
Photograph by Christo Crocker

Coda/when we disperse/we hold differently/under the tactics of water, detail, July 2024
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

The trees are the alphabet is on fire (BRACT 9), detail, back, 2023–4 and Coda/when we disperse/we hold differently/under the tactics of water, detail, 2024
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

Epigraph/hearth (portrait of the artist’s mother as ‘Chop Shop’ breastfeeding
the artist), 1984
Digital print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag, photo frame, poa (tussock) grasses,
dried mizuna, cotton twine, dimensions variable
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

Insert/fossil fooled, 2024
Dried brassica, polyethylene strap, dimensions variable
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

The trees are the alphabet is on fire (BRACT 3), detail, front, 2023–4
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

The trees are the alphabet is on fire (BRACT 7), detail, back, 2023–4
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

The trees are the alphabet is on fire (BRACT 8), detail, front, 2023–4
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

anti-aria for ater-
Black and moss unbound risograph artist book
20 pp + insert
150 x 280 mm
First edition, edition of 30
Printed by Stray Pages
Raw scans by Hound & Bone
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

Colophon/grand dada dada mama, 2024
Ash composite (willow wood, banana leaves, papers of acid-free alpha-cellulose, corn, cotton rag, gampi, kozo and papyrus fibres treated with charcoal, graphite, rice glue, water and smoked vermiculite), biochar, smoked vermiculite, landfill biodegradable LDPE, 30 units of 10 x 18.5cm each
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

Colophon/grand dada dada mama, 2024
Opening night
Photograph by Gianna Rizzo

The trees are the alphabet is on fire (Bract 4), 2024
Handmade willow charcoal, graphite, rice glue and water on acid-free cotton paper, dimensions variable
High-res raw scans by Hound & Bone