Tracing Time
Divisions Gallery, Melbourne, 2023
Ilona Nelson, Nic Plowman, Sam Eyeles and Ginny Grayson
Exhibition Statement
A curatorial project by artist Nic Plowman, this exhibition offers audiences an intimate exploration of time, memory, and the tapestry of human experience. The catalyst was to showcase contemporary artists whose visual languages are linked by materiality, process, time, drawing, and surface – exposing what sets them free, in a quarrel of strength and vulnerability.
Art can be a conduit, conveying elusive meanings—from joy to sorrow, the mundane to the extraordinary. This unique exhibition asks the audience to embrace the interplay of the past and present, and to trace time, as it shapes and describes our shared human experience.
Tracing Time links five contemporary Australian artists through the expansive and ambiguous nature of time.
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Tracing Time - Installation
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What I Thought I Knew - Graphite on Paper
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Haptic Self - Burnished Graphite on Paper
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Cognisance - Ink, graphite, charcoal, fineliner on paper
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Detail - Cognisance
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Detail - Cognisance
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Detail - Cognisance
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Detail - Cognisance
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What I Thought I Knew - Artist Talk
Artist Statement
An exploration of self. Of tracing time and awareness. Of memory past and present. What I recognise in the mirror, from a photo, only tells a half-truth. In looking closely, by examining slowly, and drawing each observation, I gain a deeper more intimate understanding and knowledge of the exterior self. But what does it ‘feel’ like to actually inhabit my body? To go beyond just a visual description.
Drawing has enabled me to search for more of the truth. To access and become deeply aware of other perceptual systems that may enable me to expose and exhume an image through awareness and consciousness.
Created completely by feel, with eyes closed, the image slowly reveals itself both to me and the viewer. As one hand touches and maps the body the other responds and translates that experience by burnishing the surface of the graphite, creating a haptic self-portrait only visible to the viewer when shifting their own physical position. The small drawings, are translations of sensory experiences within my own body. Anxiety, tired, irritated, cold, pleasure, relaxed, tension, pain, discomfort, pressure.
Led by the curiosity and hyper-awareness that drawing encourages, each trace of a mark holds time and deep knowing. It carries memory and represents a moment of my history. Of my aging, and my story.