Back Gallery: Tamara baillie (SA) - lighthouse

Woe betide those that say

They don’t need no light to guide their way

Think they're safe on their own--
Drown in murky depths below

-- Chad Alan Gracey, Chad David Taylor, Edward Joel Kowalczyk, Patrick Dahlheimer

This new work expands on Baillie’s cartographically-inspired installations of sugar-cured muslin and salt-water mark making, which seek to chart the dark territories obscured by traditionally accepted narratives of exploration and discovery.
Her unique processes create haunting psycho-geographies that respond simultaneously to physical and emotional terrain. The resulting installations are non-linear spaces that offer a relational experience of landscape and question our accepted understandings of collective identity and memory.

Taking as a starting point her own explorations of elusive familial and cultural histories, her practice often considers strategies for masking, concealment and control. Her work is informed by both the Australian landscape and the many ghosts that inhabit it. The experience of navigating these ephemeral forms creates an unavoidably personal engagement with both the physical and emotional topography.