We have an exhibition this Friday at Nine Lives. Come along and check it out:
An exhibition of artworks by ELANA MULLALY and photographs by LUKE SHIRLAW.
Elana Mullaly was never that bored as a kid, growing up in the North Queensland town of Tully.
Not that Tully had much to do with it: Or maybe it had everything to do with it. Wishing herself away from the humdrum and hard work of rural life, Elana used art as her escape and, even today, her work shows us that she hasn’t given up hope for something more, forever on the rabbit’s heels like Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. She sucks the poison out of words like ‘fun’ and ‘frivolous’ and reminds us what it means to imagine. From ethereal, glassy-eyed girls with lustrous locks to miscellaneous animalia, Elana’s work is, as she puts it, “a visual response to what I find beautiful. It is something that happens organically and in the moment… The way I drew when I was young; dreams, animals and nature.”
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Luke Shirlaw likes to shoot first and ask questions later – and then shoot some more. His subjects, stricken with the terminal illness of real life, would prefer to be shot and transformed into something else: Like gorgeous ghosts, arisen from the gutter to hurl one more drunken remark, stumbling in expensive heels.
Historically, common themes of Luke’s work have been those that form a crude composite sketch of his lifestyle: graffiti, travel, music, people and the parties they leave as legacies. More recently, his work has evolved in its direction, falling into a more conceptual archetype. His latest collection explores the idea of identity: concealed vs exposed. The subjects are girls, faces masked and flesh free to breathe. The images create a curious contrast and form a captivating paradox for how we think about ourselves and others.
