Kate Vassallo draws the line
Kate Vassallo’s Ripple marks the conclusion of Artereal Gallery’s exhibition program, as the Sydney gallery is closing its doors after nearly two decades.
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John A Douglas, The Recipient, 2017, Face Mounted Archive Print, 100 x 66.7cm, Edition of 5.
John A Douglas, The Vascular Surgeon, 2017, Archive Pigment Print on Hahnemulle Cotton Rag, 78 x 60.5cm. Edition of 5.
John A Douglas, Infermiera, 2017, Archive Pigment Print on Hahnemulle Cotton Rag, 63.8 x 78.2cm, Edition of 5.
John A Douglas, Circles of Fire (variations), 2016 -17, Two channel synchronized 4K – HD 1080p Video, Duration 23minutes 17 seconds, Edition of 3. Image: Production still.
In Dante Aligiheri’s Inferno (the first part of The Divine Comedy), the poet undertakes an allegorical trek through the nine circles of hell. Broadly speaking, it’s a spiritual and moral course, sustained by the tropes of epic poetry. Now artist John A Douglas has created an imaginative correspondence between Dante’s journey through hell and Douglas’ own chronic illness and medical transplant experience.
Showing at Chalk Horse and aptly titled The Nine Circles, the exhibition displays video and photomedia in which Douglas conjures a complex blend of epic form, digital collage, vivid imagery and intricate symbolism to explore the experience of long-term illness.
For Douglas, chronic illness came in the form of renal failure. For ten years the artist was not able to board a plane and after his recent transplant surgery, he was once again permitted to fly. Using this opportunity, Douglas staged The Nine Circles across multiple sites including Turkmenistan, British Columbia and Rome. These places became the backdrop for his digital collages, which combine historic sites and characters, literary allusions, film references, surgical imagery and health workers.
Yet just as Dante leaves the realm of the strictly literal, so does Douglas. Throughout the exhibition a complex blend of the mythical and personal is played out, showing the circular and wavering relationship between healing and illness, life and death.
The Nine Circles
John A Douglas
Chalk Horse
30 November – 23 December
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