Sara Maher, Where the quiet waters of Lunawanna and the unspeakable in our history hover, 2020.
Sara Maher in studio. Photograph by Les Allester.
Sara Maher, Ghost Lady, 2021 Acrylic and watercolour on ArtBoard 30h x 20w cm Photo: Peter Angus Robinson.
Sara Maher, Stick Person, 2021 Acrylic and watercolour on ArtBoard 39h x 20w cm Photo: Peter Angus Robinson.
Sara Maher, Open Listening, 2021 Ink on paper 114h x 107w cm Photo: Peter Angus Robinson.
Sara Maher, Out of the Grey, 2021 Ink and pigment on paper 106h x 148w cm Photo: Peter Angus Robinson.
Sara Maher, Breathing Space (detail), 2021 Ink on paper 106h x 148w cm Photo: Peter Angus Robinson.
Sara Maher has long been drawn to isolated terrains, immersing herself in the reflective solitude of Tasmanian landscapes and sites. Yet her art doesn’t capture the landscape in traditionally realist form, but is instead concerned with questions of ancestry and colonisation, the experiential and emotive elements of place, and a sense of psychological unease.
Maher’s latest work was developed during a residency on Bruny Island, where she continued her ongoing exploration into how her Irish and mixed-European heritage—in particular one colonial ancestor who arrived on the second fleet—is connected to contemporary colonialism. “My work comes through a thoughtfully researched and embodied encounter with place, a growing yet fragile connection to lutruwita Country,” explains Maher. “I see Lunawanna-alonnah/Bruny Island as a microcosm of the larger Tasmanian and Australian story, wherein the quiet resonance of the land, water and sky, and the unspeakable in our history, hover.” Part of Maher’s process is listening to what has been silenced and erased by colonisation.
While Maher’s two-decade practice has seen her create across painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture and installation, her latest exhibition features fine and careful water washes with collage, painted and drawn abstractions on paper, and minuscule sculptural assemblages. These are exhibited to “conjure a subtle energy zone” that metaphorically represents the energies of life matter. For example, liquid that moves across paper might correlate to ripples in sand and water, or the movement of light.
By invoking her deeply affective experience of the Tasmanian landscape, and the layered colonial, ethical, emotive, historical and material aspects of this experience, Maher creates with “sensitive reciprocity” toward the nature and culture around her. “Through those poetic expressions in my work, varying degrees of disturbance and feeling come through both my experience [of landscape] and the work itself,” she says. “The body of work I’ve made is really about being in the full stream of that experience.”
In (and out of) the Grey
Sara Maher
Bett Gallery
3 July — 24 July
This article was originally published in the July/August print edition of Art Guide Australia.
Sophie Penkethman-Young dives into the cursed, chaotic and charming depths of the online world to create inquisitive artworks exploring technology, the internet and capitalism with humour.
Step inside Monica Rani Rudhar’s space at Parramatta Artists Studios, where she works across ceramics, sculpture, video, performance, and latterly, public art. Rudhar is working towards her solo exhibition at Martin Browne Contemporary, while reflecting on the value of play, how imitation leads to authenticity, and why she’d be lost without her sketchbook.
Steffie Yee spent many years gathering stories and images of her family’s history in the town of Branxton, NSW where her parents successfully ran a Chinese restaurant. Yee’s solo exhibition Chinese Restaurant Playground, which celebrates playfulness and joy, recently opened at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery.
As I walk through the suburban streets, I find myself thinking about the publication Speech Patterns: Nadia Hernández & Jon Campbell. It accompanied their two-person exhibition at The Art Gallery of Western Australia in 2022, which explored their shared preoccupations with class, identity and value systems.
In an era of information excess and manipulation, Wang Zhiyuan’s Dictator Training Centre exhibiting at Passage Gallery, reminds us of contemporary art’s potential as an open-ended platform for reflection, dialogue, and shared authorship.
Now showing at HOTA, Writers Revealed is an ambitious exhibition covering six centuries, presenting manuscripts, letters, illustrations and rare editions from many of the most influential authors in English literature.
