Siri Hayes Back to Nature Scene Biography

Siri Hayes was born in 1977 in , where she lives. Contemporary Australian Art, National Gallery of , She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Graduate Melbourne, 2013; A Curious Nature: The Landscape as Diploma of Visual Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts, Theatre in Contemporary Photography and New Media, Melbourne, in 1998 and 2001 respectively. Hayes has held Gallery, Victoria, 2013; I Would Breathe Water, positions as a lecturer and technician in photography at Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne, 2012; Boundary Line, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, and the TarraWarra Museum of Art, Healesville, Victoria, and The Victorian College of the Arts, and is currently a lecturer New Arcadia, Lismore Regional Gallery, New South Wales, in photomedia at Monash University, Melbourne. both 2011; Stormy Weather: Contemporary Landscape Photography, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2010; The artist’s recent solo exhibitions include: All You Knit is Tickle Attack, Backlight Photo Festival, Łódz Art Center, Love, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Poland, and TR1 Taidehalli, Tampere, Finland; and Where 2012; Aquatic Listening, Grantpirrie Gallery, Sydney, in the Woods, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College Dredge, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne, of the Arts, Melbourne, all 2008. Listening Portraits, Gallerysmith, Melbourne and Latrobe Regional Gallery, Morwell, Victoria, all 2010; En Plein Air, Hayes’s work features in many public collections in Gallerysmith, Melbourne, 2009; Landscapes, University and she has received several photographic prizes including Art Gallery, University of Sydney and Switchback Gallery, the National Photographic Purchase Award, an Australia– Korea Foundation travel grant and the Olive Cotton Award Monash University, Campus, Victoria, 2008; Lyric for Excellence in Photographic Portraiture. In 2008 she Theatre, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, was a finalist in the inaugural Prix Pictet exhibited at the and Benalla Art Gallery, Victoria, 2005 and 2004 respectively. Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France—an award for international Since 2000 Hayes’s work has been included in many group photography that engages with environmental themes. In exhibitions throughout Australia as well as in Japan, France, 2010 Hayes was artist-in-residence at the Australia Council Poland and Finland. These include: Negotiating this World: studio in Barcelona, Spain.

Above: Heide Colour Spectrum 2013 Cover: Entangled 2012 Colour Trap 2012 Billabong Web 2012 Siri Hayes: Back to Nature Scene

Getting ‘back to nature’, a concept that has gained currency and blue wool.3 Such colours are often pleasingly at odds Hayes takes this idea further in the photographic offered by nature. In Heide’s grounds the co-existence of since the industrial revolution, appears ever more desirable with the characteristics of the plant material in its natural self-portrait Entangled (2012) by portraying herself as a designed gardens, natural bush and river flatlands invoke today as we seek balance in our fast-paced lives. The more form; for example, the noxious weed Oxalis (sometimes spider-like weaver. She has draped skeins of yarn over her for her ‘a sense of wildness that is intriguing’. Likewise, the transfixed we are by screens and devices, and the more referred to as sour grass) produces an enticing fluorescent head like an absurd and strangely wild form of camouflage, artist’s ‘scenes’ are natural, but also partly of her own and built-up our environment becomes, the greater our craving yellow dye. The aesthetic effect derived from a plant as she stands surrounded by the autumnal leaves of the other’s making. The modelling of nature by culture—and, in becomes to escape from it all. In this context, it seems that commonly regarded as invasive and a nuisance appealed to silver vein creeper in Heide II’s main courtyard. Resembling turn, culture by nature—is a theme explored more broadly in ‘the smallest green feature lifts our spirits, while the wide Hayes, who is inclined in her photography to emphasise ‘a a mask or guerrilla-style headgear, her outfit also calls Back to Nature Scene. As the wordplay in her exhibition title open spaces can change our lives.’1 scene’s beauty even when the ecology of it is degraded.’ to mind the recent phenomena of yarn-bombing—a form suggests, for Hayes nature is a source not only of ‘scenic’ Siri Hayes reflects on being more in touch with nature The artist also finds meaning in the ritual of gathering of graffiti or street art where knitted or woven fibres views or landscapes but also of cultivated ‘scenes’ where in a group of new works that respond to Heide’s abundant plants and extracting dyes, activities that evoke for her a rather than paint are used to adorn and personalise the human activity and dramas play out. gardens and parkland, a remnant green sanctuary in sense of connection to ‘old times’. ‘I feel like a witch or urban environment. The image is a playful, yet canny, Linda Short, Assistant Curator inner-suburban Melbourne. Hayes’s large colour landscape shaman simmering amazing smelling brews in massive representation of the artist’s own creative powers, the Heide Museum of Modern Art photographs have often explored particular sites and pots on my kitchen stove’, she says. She also observes yarn, string, knitting needles and the camera cable- the histories connected to them. Whether recording the correspondences with the alchemic processes of old-style release (signalling her own authorship of the photograph) 1 Tuija Seipell, ‘Getting Back to Nature’, www.thecoolhunter.com.au/ article/detail/1994/getting-back-to-nature. 28 February 2013. ecological imbalance of a now industrialised landscape or photography, likening the method of ‘soaking and brewing transfiguring her as a multi-armed ‘creator creature!’ 2 Siri Hayes. All quotes are from the artist, taken from conversations and the impact of European settlement on native bushland, her the plant in water’ to using a ‘developer in old-fashioned Contrasting with the performative actions in this work, email correspondence with the author, February – March 2013. desire to evoke the interrelationship between people and wet-process photography’. The application of a binding the large photographic frieze Billabong Web (2012) is 3 Hayes also used the leaves of native indigo, ivy and rhubarb plants, pear the land is central. agent to make the plant colour attach permanently to the conceived as a theatre for the viewer. In this woodland tree bark and walnut husks. She trod very lightly on the land, collecting only small amounts of plant material and using surplus wood resulting At Heide the artist has focused on her personal experience fibre similarly reminds her of the ‘fixing stage of darkroom scene (located on the southern border of Heide’s from the gardeners’ tree maintenance program. of place, investigating different ways to connect with and processing’ when the developing image becomes set. grounds and neighbouring Banksia Park), the nearly bare 4 The location of this work is also a tribute to the original creator of the understand her subject matter. Though principally known Hayes recognises the value of preserving past knowledge branches of late autumn trees intertwine to form a natural Wild Garden, Neil Douglas, a gifted gardener, artist and environmentalist for her photographic work, Hayes also has a background in and this informs her skillful hand-making of Heide Colour proscenium arch that beckons us into its realm. Here, the who was involved in the creation of the Heide gardens in the 1930s and 40s. Douglas was also a friend of Hayes’s grandparents and an early craft and has embraced tactile skills she learned during her Spectrum (2013), a woven rug and colour-sampler of the natural world is presented as a place of beauty and refuge, pioneer of the ‘back-to-nature’ lifestyle that inspires her. childhood and teenage years from her mother, grandmother artist’s dyed wools. The work is meticulously crafted from a but in reality the site falls short of these ideals. The trees 5 John and Sunday Reed, the founders of Heide, planted one box elder and school craft teachers. Interestingly, the artist also takes traditional weaving pattern passed down from her familial are in fact box elders, an introduced species now defined which propagated throughout the river flatlands. a handcrafted approach in her photography, preferring the mentors. Displayed on the gallery wall, the rug’s utilitarian by environmentalists as a riparian weed.5 And nearby a time-based manual operation of her old-fashioned large function as a floor covering becomes redundant, allowing us towering transmission pylon rises up from a public car park. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS format camera to new digital technologies. In this exhibition to more fully enjoy its textural and abstract qualities. Hayes From beneath her photographer’s darkcloth—a mysterious The artist would like to acknowledge the support and her photographic and textile works are shown together, has deliberately chosen a pattern of simple concentric setting ideal for plotting and trickery—Hayes conjures a assistance of Dugald Noyes and the Heide gardening team; revealing some surprising correspondences. circles; the overall design mimics a colour-wheel such that transformation of nature. Barb Henderson; Anne and Neil Barker; Craft night ladies; For some time Hayes has been drawn to the idea of the tints of the Heide landscape can be experienced in an In Swift (2013), a video work purposefully shot on Super John Cherry; Lisa Theiler; Linsey Gosper; Tristan Dewey; colouring wool with natural dyes extracted from plants ‘almost scientific manner’. 8 film, we encounter the mesmerising vision of a weaver’s Les Walkling; Phill, Shane and Gary at Colour Factory; as a ‘novel way of constructing a record or description of The ‘Heide-coloured’ wool in this textile work gives swift being used to wind wool. Displaying it on a small Greg Wood at Woodworks Framing; Paul, Oli and 2 the places where they grow’. In this she finds parallels material form to Hayes’s interactions with the landscape. monitor positioned low on the gallery wall, Hayes invites Luella Wood; Samantha Vawdrey and Linda Short. with photographing a landscape. Both processes involve A different but related approach has been taken in her us to crouch down and view the gently rhythmic motion transmission; of light, which reflects off objects and is photograph Colour Trap (2012). Here in Heide’s Wild Garden of the swift rotating, as we might stop and bend down to Linda Short thanks Liz Cox, Sue Cramer, Linda Michael, captured as an image by the camera during photography; (adjacent to the Heide I house) we see an intuitive web- revere something we stumble upon in nature. The footage Dugald Noyes, Ava Saunders and Samantha Vawdrey for and of colour, which transfers from plant to textile during like weaving that the artist has constructed between two is accompanied by a soundtrack of experimental music, their work on this project. the technique of dyeing, leaving its impression on the wool. persimmon trees, the distance between them perfect for composed from recordings of Hayes’s children plucking the Installation photographs: John Brash While, as Hayes points out, the dyes cannot create ‘a literal intervention on a human scale.4 The softly-hued woollen strings of the loom she hand-built especially to create work image of the landscape’, they can be used to create textile forms appear to catch the colours of the garden like for this project—for them, it is a new musical instrument to © Heide Museum of Modern Art, the artist, author, photographer and designer works that convey an experiential and abstract sense of place. shards of refracted light, their harmonious fusion with the play while their mother weaves. Equipped with a ‘do-it-yourself’ guide to making natural surroundings a gentle reminder of the benefits of working In her quest to connect with nature Hayes re-purposes SUPPORTED BY dyes, Hayes, with the help of Heide’s gardeners, identified with, instead of against, nature. Immersing herself in the ways of the past so as to make them relevant to her art over twenty plants across the site that were suitable sights, sounds and smells of a springtime garden, the artist now. She uses time-honoured techniques that could soon This project is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria. for making dyes and experimented with half of these. when making this work felt ‘a part of nature’, and took time be altogether forgotten in our technologically advanced Eucalyptus leaves, Osage orange heartwood, hollyhock to reflect on her place in its grand scheme: ‘I love the idea of world. For her, there is ‘something of discovery, meditation, SPONSOR flowers and elderberries were among plants she collected being tangled in nature and of nature having its own way in patience and trust’ encapsulated in these age-old methods to create a spectrum of soft-to-vivid orange, yellow, pink the end’, she says. that can bring us closer to the tranquillity and constancy PRINTERS & REPRODUCERS OF FINE ART PROJECT GALLERY #12 23 March – 28 July 2013

7 Templestowe Rd Bulleen VIC 3105 heide.com.au LIST OF WORKS

Billabong Web 2012 Heide Colour Spectrum 2013 Latex print wool, natural plant dyes, artist’s proof cotton 278 x 348 cm 121 cm diameter Colour Trap 2012 Swift 2013 chromogenic print super 8mm colour film artist’s proof transferred to single-channel 79.5 x 102 cm high definition digital video duration: 10.39 mins Entangled 2012 chromogenic print All works are courtesy artist’s proof of the artist. 123 x 96 cm

Installation view