MELBOURNE-based artist Penelope Davis creates jellyfish forms from a collage of components.
Taking the detritus of contemporary technologies and combining these with organic source material such as leaves and seaweed, Davis makes casts in silicone, then uses these casts themselves as forms.
The artist hand sews these ‘skins’ together to create delicate hybrid forms that resemble jellyfish.
“These works reflect on, and embody, a painstaking attempt to recuperate an appreciation for the natural world, our symbiotic relationship with it, and the necessity of our shared future,” she says.
Recent curated exhibitions include Divine Abstraction, Justin Art House Museum (2016), Ex-libris – the book in contemporary art, Geelong Gallery (2014), Perceptions of Space: Justin Collection, Glen Eira City Gallery (2014), Missing Presumed Dead travelling to regional galleries in Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia (2013), Interieur-Exterieur at Lumas Galleries, Paris (2010), and The Apple Project, AC Institute, New York (2010).
Davis’ work is held in numerous public and corporate collections nationally and internationally, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Artbank, ANZ Bank, DC Design China, Victorian College of the Arts, City of Port Phillip, BHP Billiton, University of Melbourne and private collections.
Catch Sea Change at Frankston Arts Centre’s Cube 37 venue, Davey St, until Saturday, 27 August. Sea Change can be viewed from the street front 24/7.
For more information about the artist, visit thefac.com.au. Penelope Davis is represented by MARS Gallery, Melbourne.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 3 August 2022
