Utopia Art Sydney is showing Simryn Gill, her first exhibition for Utopia. It profiles the work produced for the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013. Link to the catalogue is above and below is an edited extract from my piece on Venice for The Urban List, which mentions Gill’s sensitive installation of this exhibition. Reviewing the Utopia catalogue evokes great memories of this time in Venice, but also the strength of the work, that spoke to strongly in the roofless pavilion but stands up very well in digital print as well. Congratulations Utopia!
The Australia Party is held in a Venetian Palazzo, and Australians sprawl, as the evening wears on, through a traditional building—the chandeliers, the loggia, the courtyard garden, the canal frontage. Australian Pavilion artist, Simryn Gill relaxes on the bed in the cloakroom—rest well-earned after days of installation, openings, tours, questions. High spirits abound—black clad women merge into one—as another ventures up darkened stairs, they cry, ‘Miranda!’.
Other disappearances include the roof of the Australian Pavilion in the Giardini. Simryn Gill’s installation, Here art grows on trees, speaks strongly to the personal narrative in The Encyclopedic Palace. The work communes with the sky; natural light, rain and air caress the words (cut from the books that also inhabit the space) and fly across the wall like a swarm of bees. Her ‘noughts’ series, hung on nails on the wall, include a pram wheel, aged and weathered like a relic from the textural layers of Venice. Painted black walls reflect colour and patina and bat natural light around the space. This display is gentle, sensuous, sensitive, and sophisticated in its subtlety.
– See more at: http://www.theurbanlist.com/brisbane/a-list/5-nights-venice-venice-biennale-2013#sthash.vDrLJh1e.dpuf