MATERIAL AND MATTER – Janet Laurence: After Nature
CLASS KIT
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MATERIAL AND MATTER – Janet Laurence: After Nature
Sydney-based artist Janet Laurence engages with the idea that all living things – animal, plant, mineral – are connected to each other. For over 30 years, Laurence has used diverse materials to look closely at the natural world, its complexity, beauty and the environmental challenges it faces today. Laurence’s practice includes painting, sculpture, installation, photography and video, and has increasingly moved beyond the gallery walls. She has transformed public places with immersive installations and environments that incorporate natural materials such as ash and straw, minerals and oxides, living plant matter, corals, taxidermy birds, and more. Researching and drawing from the historical collections of natural history museums, Laurence brings together diverse concepts and themes including memory and matter; alchemy and transformation; ephemerality and transience; threatened creatures and environments; and healing and physical (as well as cultural) restoration. In this class kit, we look at the theme ‘material and matter’. We also draw on the work of Nicole Foreshew and Lorraine Connelly- Northey to see how MCA Collection artists relate to these ideas.
Janet Laurence in her Sydney studio, 2018 Photograph: Jacquie Manning MCA Material and matter 3
Spend one minute looking around the room you are in. Work as a group or individually to draw a map of all the different materials you can find in this room.
Choose a material from the map that most attracts you. • What is it about this material that draws you in? • How do you feel when you touch, smell or listen to this material? • What personal memories or thoughts does this material bring up for you? • Compare your responses with another person. What are the similarities and differences?
Write or draw your responses on your map. WARM-UP MCA Material and matter 4
“Glass is the thing that creates visibility; glass creates lenses, windows. Scientific glass is something that I’ve continued to use, for its symbolic use… it indicates transformation, or the alchemical story of one material transforming into another. ” Janet Laurence, in ‘Artist talk: The matter of the masters’, video, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2017 MCA Material and matter 5
Janet Laurence Heartshock (After Nature) (detail) 2008/2019 Installation view, Janet Laurence: After Nature, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2019, Eucalyptus camaldulensis var. obtusa, longicorn beetle, fungal mycelium, glass, salt rocks Image courtesy and © the artist Photograph: Jacquie Manning
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In Heartshock (After Nature) (2008/2019), Janet Laurence places a tree in the gallery space that was recently cut down. Bandages, scientific glass implements and salt rocks adorn its branches. How do the materials the artist has chosen influence the experience of the artwork?
The cut tree and botanical specimens in the artwork were sourced from the Australian Botanic Garden, Mount Annan (NSW), specifically for the exhibition at the MCA. The tree died due to drought. • What are the ethical considerations artists need to make when choosing materials to work with?
DISCUSSION IDEAS MCA MaterialsMaterial and and matter matter 7 “ I began to think about the plight of animals, and I became entangled in the stories and foundations of these museums, and their colonial histories... I began to think about ways to give them a new life.
”Janet Laurence, in Rachel Kent (editor), ‘After Nature’, Janet Laurence: After Nature, exhibition catalogue, MCA, p 35 MCA Material and matter 8
‘Material and matter’ in the MCA Collection: Nicole Foreshew
Nicole Foreshew is a Wiradjuri woman from central-western NSW. Her works draw on personal, familial and cultural relations to place. She works with the relationship between the body and the earth, considering time, materiality, growth and renewal. In ngayirr (sacred) (2015–2017) Foreshew brings together an ‘awareness of place together with cultural knowledge of earth, mineral and plant materials’.1 ngayirr (sacred) comprises of nine tree limbs found by the artist on Country that have been ceremoniously transformed. The head or tip of each limb is covered in a crystalline skin that range in colour from pale pink to deep russet. Foreshew intentionally buried the limbs underground in a site of personal significance. Over time a crystalline skin grows across the limb, the result of a chemical reaction deep with the earth. Referencing spiritual and cultural practices of the artist’s homeland, ngayirr (sacred) traces ‘personal connections to kin and the material knowledge required to retrieve and revive the body’.2
1. Geraldine Kirrihi Barlow, ‘Nicole Foreshew’, Primavera 2018: Young Australian Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, 2017, p 28. 2. Nicole Foreshew, artist statement, unpublished, June 2017. Nicole Foreshew ngayirr (sacred) (detail) 2015–17 minerals, salt, wood (9 Parts + Study 3), Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2017 Image courtesy and © the artist MCA Material and matter 9
‘Material and matter’ in the MCA Collection: Lorraine Connelly-Northey
Waradgerie artist Lorraine Connelly-Northey’s practice is inherently influenced by her western and Indigenous heritage. Crucially, her ongoing use of found materials, such as wire and corrugated iron, creates a transformative tension within her work. Connelly-Northey utilises materials often associated with European settlement and industrialisation of the land, and repurposes them into sculptural works that use weaving techniques associated with Indigenous culture and reference traditional objects, such as coolamons. Through her work, Connelly-Northey explores the dynamic nature of her country and heritage as traditional, progressive, resilient and innovative.
Lorraine Connelly-Northey Three rivers country 2010 minerals, salt, wood, (9 Parts + Study 3) Museum of Contemporary Art, purchased with funds provided by the MCA Foundation, 2017 Image courtesy and © the artist
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Artists use materials as a language through which to speak. Look back over the artworks in this class kit. Why do you think the artists have chosen to use the materials they have for their artwork?
• How have the artists used materials to connect to place? • How do the places where the artists source their materials impact the final artwork?
DISCUSSION IDEAS MCA Material and matter 11
“ She asks us to look, hear, feel, smell and look again at the natural world… in this process, our perception will shift, ever so delicately, as we discover further layers of glaze, or discover the tiniest green leaf, or look in disbelief at signs of erosion and devastation. ” Victoria Lynn, curatorial statement on Heartshock (2008), janetlaurence.com/heartshock
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How do materials create meaning in artworks?
DIG DEEPER MCA Material and matter 13
USEFUL TERMS – Janet Laurence: After Nature
ALCHEMY (noun) a seemingly magical process of transformation, creation, or combination.
EMPATHY (noun) the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
ENDANGERED (noun) (of a species) seriously at risk of extinction. EPHEMERAL (adjective) lasting for a very short time. EXTINCTION (noun) the state or process of being or becoming extinct: no longer in existence. INTERCONNECTEDNESS (noun) the state of being connected with each other. INVENTORY (noun) a complete list of items such as property, goods in stock, or the contents of a building. MATERIAL (noun) the matter from which a thing is or can be made. MATTER (noun) physical substance in general, as distinct from mind and spirit; (in physics) that which occupies space and possesses rest mass, especially as distinct from energy.
ORNITHOLOGY (noun) the scientific study of birds. PERIL (noun) serious and immediate danger.
TRANSIENCE (noun) the state or fact of lasting only for a short time.
WUNDERKAMMER (noun) a place where a collection of curiosities and rarities is exhibited. Origin German, literally ‘wonder chamber’.
All definitions taken from Oxford living dictionaries, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/, accessed 14 February 2019 MCA 14
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