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Helen Hardess interdisciplinary visual spatial installation artist
Helen Hardess helenhardess interdisciplinary visual spatial installation artist

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice: Absurdity in an age of disaster

Grey Street Gallery QCA Griffith University

Found, constructed, and ready-made sculptures, textiles, paint, welded steel, dacron,sand.

This work converses with the seriousness of contemporary art about "the age of humans". Numbed by disaster narratives and moral imperatives, it asks if moments of levity can aid in processing our time's emotional buffeting. Through absurdity and speculation Curiouser glances ruefully towards the culture wars around climate, and the sheer impossibility of individually giving Capitalism the slip. The massive fault lines running between one individual's reluctant complicity, and free-wheeling ecological breakdown is acknowledged. This assembly of sculptural vignettes swerves away from the educational towards silliness or pathos, offering moments of impossibility or "magic realism" as devices of affective release, in which tactile materiality and the exposure of studio processes come to the fore.

Found, constructed, and ready-made sculptures, textiles, paint, welded steel, dacron,sand.  ​  This work converses with the seriousness of contemporary art about "the age of humans". Numbed by disaster narratives and moral imperatives, it asks if moments of levity can aid in processing our time's emotional buffeting. Through absurdity and speculation Curiouser glances ruefully towards the culture wars around climate, and the sheer impossibility of individually giving Capitalism the slip. Helen Hardess Installation
Found, constructed, and ready-made sculptures, textiles, paint, welded steel, dacron,sand.  ​  This work converses with the seriousness of contemporary art about "the age of humans". Numbed by disaster narratives and moral imperatives, it asks if moments of levity can aid in processing our time's emotional buffeting. Through absurdity and speculation Curiouser glances ruefully towards the culture wars around climate, and the sheer impossibility of individually giving Capitalism the slip. Helen Hardess Installation
Found, constructed, and ready-made sculptures, textiles, paint, welded steel, dacron,sand.  ​  This work converses with the seriousness of contemporary art about "the age of humans". Numbed by disaster narratives and moral imperatives, it asks if moments of levity can aid in processing our time's emotional buffeting. Through absurdity and speculation Curiouser glances ruefully towards the culture wars around climate, and the sheer impossibility of individually giving Capitalism the slip. Helen Hardess Installation
Found, constructed, and ready-made sculptures, textiles, paint, welded steel, dacron,sand.  ​  This work converses with the seriousness of contemporary art about "the age of humans". Numbed by disaster narratives and moral imperatives, it asks if moments of levity can aid in processing our time's emotional buffeting. Through absurdity and speculation Curiouser glances ruefully towards the culture wars around climate, and the sheer impossibility of individually giving Capitalism the slip. Helen Hardess Installation
Found, constructed, and ready-made sculptures, textiles, paint, welded steel, dacron,sand.  ​  This work converses with the seriousness of contemporary art about "the age of humans". Numbed by disaster narratives and moral imperatives, it asks if moments of levity can aid in processing our time's emotional buffeting. Through absurdity and speculation Curiouser glances ruefully towards the culture wars around climate, and the sheer impossibility of individually giving Capitalism the slip. Helen Hardess Installation
Found, constructed, and ready-made sculptures, textiles, paint, welded steel, dacron,sand.  ​  This work converses with the seriousness of contemporary art about "the age of humans". Numbed by disaster narratives and moral imperatives, it asks if moments of levity can aid in processing our time's emotional buffeting. Through absurdity and speculation Curiouser glances ruefully towards the culture wars around climate, and the sheer impossibility of individually giving Capitalism the slip. Helen Hardess Installation
Found, constructed, and ready-made sculptures, textiles, paint, welded steel, dacron,sand.  ​  This work converses with the seriousness of contemporary art about "the age of humans". Numbed by disaster narratives and moral imperatives, it asks if moments of levity can aid in processing our time's emotional buffeting. Through absurdity and speculation Curiouser glances ruefully towards the culture wars around climate, and the sheer impossibility of individually giving Capitalism the slip. Helen Hardess Installation
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