Trailer: 01:15 minute of 11:00 minutes
Undercurrent is a single channel video that explores the way moving image can be used to expand understandings of our physical temporal surrounds. The sub oceanic sounds in this video convey a low frequency hydrophonic recording of Iceberg A53a breaking in the Antarctic Peninsula.
“This single channel looped video is deceptively simple as you enter the gallery. Are we looking at a landscape or a seascape? Are we looking up or down? Pushed by the waves, pulled by the undertow the work becomes immersive. Through her control of the medium Davis has produced a monochromatic work that crosses mediums referencing the washing and staining of traditional Chinese watercolours, sweeping black lines flow from thick to thin from black to white as this works cycles through day and night, rushing in and receding, the trace of this tidal movement builds upon itself producing a stained misty mountain range.
Keep watching, the waves rush in and out, and then the horizon flips, we are folded into the space, we are within the waves, surrounded by the materiality of water. Produced by bringing together drone footage from the sky and a soundscape from the oceans floor, Davis uses these multiple perspectives, to disconnect us further from the real. Placing us at the centre of a timeless work of epic nature.” Adam Harding, Director CCP Gallery Melbourne, 02/09/18
Camera: Tom Waugh
Drone pilot: Rian Taylor
Edit: Blue Lucine, Julia Davis
Sound: Blue Lucine, Julia Davis
Installation photography: Richard Glover
This work has been shown:
ACP Gallery Sydney 2018 + toured by ACP to Gosford Regional Gallery NSW 2019; Blue Mountains Cultural Center NSW 2021; Redcliffe Art Gallery, Moreton Bay QLD 2021
Manly Art Gallery and Museum 2022
Salamanca Art Center, Hobart TAS 2021
Janet Homes á Court Gallery WA 2018
Glynn Vivian Gallery Wales, UK 2018
Dominik Mersch Gallery Sydney – Catalogue Essay
With thanks to Bob Dziak, Research Oceanographer and Acoustics Director, NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory for supplying sound.
See images below of another work shown concurrently at Manly Gallery in 2022.
Sabhka: 27.04.22, 2022, 40 x 40 cm, Unique archival print on Canson rag
Electron microscope image of artist’s teardrop.
Thanks to Dr Karen Privat, UNSW
