Anna Finlayson, Simone Slee, Christian Thompson AO

Anna Finlayson's suite of recent works on paper extends on previous bodies of work that rely on repeating gridded motifs, coupled with the accumulated numeric and textual annotations transcribed throughout the making process. The fine hand-ruled grids that underpin the drawings remain as a link to previous works, make reference to historical precedents, and function as a compositional framework from which the drawings emerge. In the working drawings grids begin to expand and morph, multiple layers of interlocking forms and structures overlap in a playful exploration of form and ground.

Christian Thompson’s work explores notions of identity, cultural hybridity, and history—often referring to the relationships between these concepts and the environment. Formally trained as a sculptor, Thompson’s multidisciplinary practice engages mediums such as photography, video, sculpture, performance, and sound. For Limerence, Thompson presents a suite of his signature immersive large-scale Flower Walls, where his features are obscured by or emerging from native flora. Thompson says "...the flower walls are a direct reflection of my upbringing with a strong connection to the natural world, and that is Aboriginal culture. It’s interesting because I used to wear the flowers and now it seems like the flowers ‘wear’ me. I’m inside this floral constellation."

Simone Slee's new suite of sculptural works continues her ongoing investigation into the conceptual conditions and problems of sculpture. As with earlier works, she demands complicity from particular objects that she constructs and composes. Slee doesn’t just make her materials the subject of art, in this case she expects her rocks and blown glass to reciprocally perform an action of propping or holding. The materials themselves became accomplices in her questioning of how things might be held up (and conversely held down). The materiality of these works certainly implies stability and permanency, however it is the suggestion of pushing and propping (and the immanent potential of failing and falling) that suggests these sculptures are actually the protagonists in some kind of durational performance.