AAD Specialisation 4 Visual Diary: Dark Heart at the Art Gallery of South Australia

I have now visited the Dark Heart exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia a couple of times, and I am very much enjoying how the themes some of the artists are considering tie in with my own work for this semester. I particularly like the work of Shoufay Derz with her use of the symbolism of the moth. As stated in the text displayed next to the work, the moth in many cultures is considered to indicate death, therefore Derz has created a contemporary vanitas image discussing mortality and the passage of time. I also loved the surrealist elements and creativity of Martin Bell's Untitled works, the first being a huge ink drawing and the second a series of "paintings" done using modelling clay on wooden panels. I thought the panels especially were fantastic as the colours achievable with the clay were vibrant and energetic, and the nature of the clay meant each of the panels had a fascinating textural surface. Whilst I think I will be sticking to using paint to create my work, I am inspired by the sculptural works in the exhibition for materials I can use for the model making stage. I also enjoyed the quirkiness of Brendan Huntley's clay heads and found his use of colour aesthetically pleasing, and Tony Albert's collage works as I love to incorporate paper where I can as a medium and method. Overall, I thought the Dark Heart exhibition was a successfully curated one with many diverse and interesting artworks to look at, and I think perhaps what I have taken away from it most is encouragement to pursue my conceptual ideas as they can have a dark conceptual basis, but still be visually enjoyable and even playful.