Showing now:
Down the Rabbit Hole
Are you ready to fall Down the Rabbit Hole of memory and reflection with Carte Blanche?
Exhibition Dates: 7th September to 27th October 2024
Event Night: Saturday, 10th October 2024 | 5pm to 7pm
About Carte Blanche
Formed in 2012, Carte Blanche is an alliance of like-minded artists of diverse skills and strengths. They are connected by their mutual interest in artistic development and their personal passions for environmental and social issues. This underpins the excitement and inspiration which impels Carte Blanche to produce evolving and innovative conceptual works.
Each artist has a strong working history in their area of expertise. As a group, Carte Blanche has demonstrated their ability to craft a response to contemporary issues, constantly pushing boundaries, through extensive successful exhibitions, the themes often reflecting the ambiguity of our times.
Carte Blanche has also been frequently involved with community projects organizing public events, e.g., Between the Tides, an outdoor art event, as well as numerous workshops. As Artists in Residence at Studio Red, Redcliffe State High School, since 2013, they have taken part in various classroom activities with students, held workshops for annual environmental installations and participated in excursions.
The group remains committed to expanding their knowledge, expertise and experimentation.
Artist: Maxine V Cole
My work investigates the ways in which various patterns emerge in nature and the man-made world.
These Artist Books incorporate a range of handmade mark making derived from the sometimes unpredictable processes of rusting and dyeing.
My natural curiosity pushes me to explore the potential transformation of many different materials including library index cards and repurpose coffee cups.
Artist: Kim Cooper
Capturing a scene through tunnels in the rocks on the beach has become a favourite past time of mine.
Each view offers a glimpse into a scene that transcends ordinary sight. A secret window into another world. This world changes with the passage of time and tide.
These moments of connection remind me to pause and appreciate the beauty that surrounds us, and the quiet wonders often overlooked.
Artist: Eva Hekel
All of us at one time or another have become ensnared in the miseries of adverse outside events or dark thoughts of our own making. The Dogleg Tunnel serves as a metaphor for troubled times where no clear way out is discernible.
My artwork was informed by a visit to the Dogleg Tunnel at Cockatoo Island. It consists of representational watercolours that portray abstract looking images along the 180m long tunnel as man-made structure and primordial landscape meet. Dating back to 1915, the Dogleg Tunnel on Cockatoo Island was carved out of rock to connect one side of the island to the other thus facilitating the movement of workers and materials. During World War Il it was used as an air shelter.
We are reminded that even if one cannot see the light at the end of a tunnel there may be a way out that is not yet perceived.
Artist: Trudy Stephens
My work focusses on the ‘birth canal’ and the universality of birthing for most humans. No matter where or who you are, you generally enter life in the same way, from a dark, fluid filled, safe cavern. That each person has this experience, is an amazing and levelling idea. Apart from the end of life, perhaps this may be the only truly common thread for us all.
Through the medium of etching, I’ve used curving lines to capture the essence of this extraordinary process.
I became obsessed with the idea that women have always provided this nurturing space and always endured the dramatic, sometimes, traumatic birthing experience. However, they are still not respected as the empowering sources of life. It’s astounding that women’s bodies, these transformative, beautiful forces are not celebrated; given even greater rights than men?
Memory Threads
When exploring recollections, it is easy to get lost in a maze of memories. The threads we weave, the connections we make, can seemingly be endless. The metaphor, 'going down the rabbit hole’, usually pertains to a mental state - with our thread installation we wanted to give it physical expression, showcasing an activity so involved and absorbing that one can't stop and finds it difficult to get out of.
The threads represent aspects of our lives that are meaningful to us, they are about storytelling and passing down memorable moments. They show our close relationship with our environment by referencing the colours and patterns of nature: seascapes, landscapes and mountainous regions. The threads also speak of human connections we all make with family, friends and people we meet and spend time with.
Predominantly recycled materials were employed, rekindling often fond recollections.
Embedded in the thread artwork are memories of our lived experiences: a sarong reminiscent of holiday pleasures, watercolour and acrylic paintings that speak of past enthusiastic preoccupations often associated with the outdoors, a woollen jumper whose unravelling of threads becomes akin to untangling the past, a mother's scarf that holds warm sentiments.... the places we live in, the people around us that we associate with, matter.
While it was easy to get lost in the tangled web of our thoughts and memories, our art project took on a life of its own.
Artist: Karin Hart
I am concentrating on the World War 1 Storage Tunnels in Darwin, which were built to protect oil storage during the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese. But the tunnels were never completed in time to be used.
They symbolise a passage to safety which could also be used as a shelter for people.
Artist: Fay McLeod
I am concentrating on the World War 1 Storage Tunnels in Darwin, which were built to protect oil storage during the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese. But the tunnels were never completed in time to be used.
They symbolise a passage to safety which could also be used as a shelter for people.
Artist: Jenny Cope
With modern technology we have a world of colour and information at our fingertips.
But within the algorithms leading us deeper and deeper down our own personal rabbit hole there arise feelings of frustration as we know there is more to experience "out there". My work Kaleidoscope - Boxed In seeks to interpret these feelings.
Artist: Kim Mancini
Paper dolls many an afternoon spending time with family connecting, drawing, pasting pictures, memories of happier times when life was simple and of, families spending time together, together we are forever connected by ties, ties that sometimes lead to grief, to tears, to loss.
As we move through life we connect again through our children with whom we make those paper doll chains that go on forever in our memory, now these children are out there on their own in the world trying to connect to someone, someone who’s not blood, not family not always user friendly, sending out threads in the hope that they will connect and start their own family and make paper dolls...
Artist: Jan Trackson
My artwork doesn’t try to reproduce the garden, birds and other living things, it is more concerned with the feelings I experience.
Being engrossed in this world, I can enjoy the garden with its trees, bird and other life as the seemingly never-ending cycle of reproduction, life, decay and death keeps repeating itself.
My textile artworks include many media: fabric, paper, acrylic, plastic, wax, thread.