WaterMark: a new encounter -palimpsest of the desert?
In IDAIA’s current project, concepts of site and sight coexist, respectively topos (site) and logos (the language of sight), two symbiotic entities.
In its full title, ‘Water mark’ posits water as a trace, as an imprint of the desert, both vital and scarce; but also as a visual sign, intrinsic to place, a key aesthetic of Aboriginal painting. In fact, another duality transpires here: the acrylic technique is modern; yet the narrative it depicts is, still, tradition.
Time and ‘mark making’, that is, writing a narrative in pictorial terms, are two important aspects to look out for. Further, water’s vital yet sparse quality, gives clues to the artists’ close affinity with nature and kinship: the canvas charts this consciousness of an ecosystem; it can be read, perhaps, like a mind map.
The aforementioned Gestuelles in Sydney, Water Mark in Hong Kong (scheduled for September): two distinct stimuli for a similar ‘corporeality’ of nature: in the latter, water is a reflexive tool of identity; and lens through which the eye can detect and interpret: sinuous lines, curves and circles might connote flux of time or the cosmos; or even the lines in the palm of one’s hand: water lines that connect people to their relatives, to their heritage and to sentient beings as a whole.
Learn more about the exhibition