energy unfolding over some time
TCB Gallery, Melbourne
2025
paintings made in collaboration with Luisa Hansal
curated by Liz Smith
an ode to ‘dislodge in a landslide’
further you are
You arrive at a place that was once a clearing. Instead of seeing an overgrown, bristling and tangled warp, what confronts you appears vague and ill-defined; nebulous. It feels unstuck in time; detached and losing form altogether. However, this is a place where the further you are from one thing, the closer you are to another.
A beam of shimmering yellow skitters across your line of sight, illuminating swathes of land as it moves. The mist begins to fade. This world is altered, yet it is not unlike our own. In this world there are stars, impressions in damp grass, hands reaching, water dappled in amber, cloud stratums scoring an open sky, strange trees, a muddy heart. The inhabitants leap into and entwine around each other, transforming with each encounter. This dance of interlocking and overlapping creates something that breathes and undulates, unfolding and unfurling before concealing once more.
The world gains form through the presence of these figures. It is full of surprises and tenderness, grief and lightness, anger and pleasure, yearnings and disappointments, questions and answers, miracles and tragedies; all of the things that make up the world you have left. Sometimes an encounter with something previously unseen and unfelt causes you to see and reconnect.
We all experience times where disassociation is so profound that this world no longer makes sense. At the very least, it can feel very lonely and terrifying. But, when your back is turned on this world, couldn’t you also say that this other world you are turned towards - and that is facing you - is just as complex as the world you are not tethered to right now? I think when we feel these kinds of detachments, whether it be from the world, friends, or lovers, we can spend a lot of time trying to get back to a state of connectedness that we forget that being untethered can be just as vital, and part of what it means to feel connected in the first place.
closer you are
A large square canvas sits on the desk between Tammy and Lui. To their right, a selection of colours sit ready on a palette, along with brushes and two jars of medium. With everything ready, they apply a mixed wash of Manganese Blue and Prussian Blue over the canvas. They then begin to chart large strokes of other colours across the canvas, creating zones which are then worked into using smaller and more varied brushes. Periodically, the canvas is moved in a clockwise direction and, it’s at these moments that Tammy and Lui step back and assess the painting’s progress before working into a new side. The work takes shape quickly; two distinct visual languages entwining and braiding together with ease and intuitiveness. Aside from the occasional - “is it alright if I change this part a little?” - there is a tender understanding of knowing how far to go and when to stop, both teaching each other how to see and showing each other new possibilities with their visual languages.
Sitting in the studio with Tammy and Lui, I am afforded the chance to see those moments of connection; when the work starts to make sense. The mundane unfurls, offering something previously unknown, unseen, and unfelt. Sometimes one’s world unfolds through connection with others; limits fall away and suddenly you are becoming again.
“Painters have often taught writers how to see. And once you’ve had that experience you see differently.”
Text by Liz Smith
Chelsea Hart, Petal, 2021.
The Paris Review, ‘James Baldwin: The Art of Fiction No. 78’, Issue 91, Spring, 1984.
Chris Kraus, Social Practices, 2021, in the essay “Face,” 176.
Documentation: Aaron Claringbold