“There’s lots of beauty in everything – you just need to see it,” said artist and Victoria resident, Talia Goldsmith, referring to the serene and rather unexpected beauty of her new exhibition, Singing Roots, open at the Women’s Gaol, Constitutional Hill.
A collection of abstract sculptures simultaneously resembling human figures and musical instruments, the exhibition is constructed from cardboard, covered with clay, ash or mud paired with coloured glass, rusty metal or chains in a myriad different forms.
Goldsmith revels in collecting and repurposing objects usually seen as waste to make new stories and meanings. The process is central to Singing Roots, through which Goldsmith explores the layers of experience with which people cover their pure selves. The mingling of different found media, she says, creates a sense of harmony.
It was her grandmother, with her love of pottery, weaving and singing, who created in Goldsmith a fascination with both music and tactile experience. These silently singing figures, each adorned with tuning pegs and named for an element in music, express the importance of listening not only to other people, materials and experiences, but to the inner self.
“When you’re in tune, that’s when you sing,” Goldsmith smiled.
Scattered around the exhibition space, some in groups to symbolise the harmony of community, the figures invite interaction from the viewer who walks among them. The fluid arrangement of her sculptures, Goldsmith feels, sets free the memory of the inmates whose lives in the jail were so constricted.
Central to the tranquil installation is a single dynamic figure, The Guest, symbolising the soul travelling through a world of experiences and new knowledge, his journey captured through Goldsmith’s own creative process.
“The strip of cardboard is like a journey for me, because you start and you don’t know where you’ll end up,” she explained.
It is this fluidity that Goldsmith wishes her viewer to experience in interpreting the installation. Art is about creating an open dialogue, she says – between artist and material, viewer, artwork and self. There are no rules.
Details: Ends 20 November; taliadesign@hotmail.com; 083 561 8005.
