23 April - 17 May 2025
front gallery
Aaron Perkins
Fruit/berry/herb: an irregular plural
Statement
‘Banananana’ poses an absurdist argument against the insensitivity and inattentiveness to difference characteristic of contemporary social and political discourse.
In a botanical sense, the banana is a berry that grows upon a herbaceous flowering plant with a false stem rather than a trunk. This singularly diverse fruit/berry/herb has a similarly contradictory place within art, possessing still-life, phallic, phallocentric, feminist, queer, psychoanalytic, colonial, capitalist, neo-liberal and post-colonial conceptual flavours.
Taking the false botanical stem of the banana plant as a false linguistic stem, the work suggests that for each banana additional to the singular ‘banana’, a further ‘-na’ is appended. Through this alternative grammatical numbering system that denies the generalising plural, the banana is held out as an absurd symbol of nuance that playfully points towards the sensitivity and attention necessary for productive and respectful social and political discourse.
Artist Bio
Aaron Perkins is a Naarm-based artist with a conceptual text-based visual arts practice that explores the role of language within self-narrative and knowledge acquisition through strategies of wordplay and orthographic abstraction.
Perkins has a keen interest in literature and holds a Doctorate of Philosophy for his research into the potential of fiction within contemporary painting. He has shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Naarm, Meanjin, and Auckland; has been a finalist in the Omnia, Redland, Elaine Bermingham, Sunshine Coast, and Moreton Bay Region art prizes; and has contributed interviews and catalogue texts for various ARIs and other text-based artists.
BACK gallery
Alanah Kent
Seriously Nonsense : A Self Exploration Arriving at Forty
Statement
‘Seriously Nonsense : A Self Exploration Arriving at Forty’ reflects my journey through the joys and fears that come with approaching the age of forty, and the ongoing struggle to feel comfortable in my own skin. This body of work delves into the complexities of being queer, disabled, and non-binary, embracing the act of fully inhabiting my true self.
Through making the Diary Works, a growing series of small mixed media works - I aimed to create a visual diary exploring thoughts and emotions. Using bright pop colours and crafting supplies, I transformed small, personal moments - ranging from pure silliness to heartbreak- into shared experiences that invite connection with the viewer.
I reflected on the innocence of having childhood friendships with inanimate objects, the discomfort of not feeling at home in my own skin and trying to unravel personal inhibitions that have held me back in dealing with mental and physical health and presenting my full unfiltered self.
While ‘Seriously Nonsense’ is a deeply personal examination, the emotions and experiences it explores – vulnerability, identity, and self-acceptance - are shared to some degree by us all.
Artist Bio
Alanah Kent is a mixed media artist living in Kaurna/Adelaide. Their practice is greatly influenced by the bright colours and imagery of Pop Surrealism. Alanah endeavours to explore new joyful worlds and characters that are created through mixed media works that are embellished with craft materials such as glitter, rhinestones and other non-traditional materials. Using these materials to invoke the nostalgia of childhood crafting afternoons, Alanah is looking to recreate the fun of those times as they explore their self identity.
Alanah Kent received their Bachelors of Contemporary Art at UniSA in 2018, and Honours at Flinders University in 2023. Their final body of work ‘Inner Joy’ was displayed as part of the 2024 Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition, at the SASA gallery as well as the Hatched : National Graduate Show, at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts.
FELTdark
Sarah Tickle
Wolf Whistle
Statement
Yes, wolf-whistles are the thin end of this wedge – the “harmless” reminder that a woman's role in public is to be judged and commented on by men." - Laura Bates Like most things in a feminist space, the silencing of woman has always been around and yet is never at the forefront of history because it doesn’t affect, who’s in power.
A Connection and inquiry into spaces you may not of even thought about is the goal of this work, questioning your own thoughts and felling the work provokes seeing the fear in the woman’s eye’s and potential recognizing them in your own , or just giving a perspective you hadn’t thought about and yet had the authority over.
Highlighting feminist issues thought the instantaneously recognisable medium of cinema, The silencing of female voices has been brilliantly implemented in keeping the ever presence patriarchy in power, even now ,when it seems the continual fight throughout history to empower woman giving them the strength to finally demand equality ,because of the ever present cultural and societal need to silence woman, we are all complicit in keeping this status quo.
Artist Bio
Sarah Tickle is a Tarntanya (Adelaide) based artist who uses an autoethnographic lens, tapping into her deep-seated feminist principles and her own gender non-conformity, to create video/moving image media works which attempt to convey the disproportionate negative treatment of females in society.
Tickle utilises a cinematic language, a self-taught communication style, a survival skill - cinema and television being her only connection with the external ‘real’ world - when experiencing a mental illness (agoraphobia) in her late teenage years. These factors feed her artistic practice where Tickle makes works highlighting inequality which she herself has experienced. Tickle’s work attempts to convey her conceptual concerns by accessing an instantly recognised medium, cinema, an unwritten narrative. Tickle will continue to manipulate cinematic, and other visual media, to create works that challenge what it means to be a female in society.