The annual South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Festival is a much-beloved, month-long celebration of contemporary art and artists across South Australia. “You can walk into nearly any building during the month of August and see art, from galleries and artist-run spaces to hairdressers and cafes—everyone is involved,” says Leigh Robb, curator of contemporary art at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA). “There’s this wonderful sense of solidarity, it has a presence throughout the city, and the state. It’s always a great chance to connect with practices that you might not have otherwise seen.”
Spanning scores of exhibitions and events, and hundreds of creatives, every year the festival chooses a feature artist—and this year SALA is celebrating Julia Robinson, who will exhibit at both AGSA and Adelaide Central Gallery. “[AGSA] has been collecting Julia’s work for almost 20 years,” says Robb. “We’re going to be showing a number of her early works from our collection, as well as some recent ones.”
Robinson’s 20-year practice has predominantly spanned sculptural and installation-based work. The forms have changed over the years—from sewn animals on stilts, to bulging, Hieronymus Bosch-esque gourds, to delicate smock dresses adorning rusting farm equipment—but there are thematic strings that run through it all, such as fertility, cyclical natures, seasonal changes, and folk-horror homages.
The works shown at AGSA will be in conversation with each other, as well as key historical pieces from the gallery’s collection. “It allows us to punctuate the permanent collection with these works of Julia’s and sit them alongside the art that she references, such as John William Waterhouse or Barbara Hepworth. It’s great that we’re able to have these interventions into the collection, these time travelling conversations with artists that have either informed her practice or that she’s responding to.”
SALA Festival
Various Adelaide locations
1—31 August
Julia Robinson: Sculptural storytelling
Art Gallery of South Australia
1—31 August
Julia Robinson: Split by the Spade
Adelaide Central Gallery
1—31 August
This article was originally published in the July/August 2024 print edition of Art Guide Australia.
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