DEAD THINGS
Dead Things brings together a suite of works by Anna Louise Richardson and Abdul-Rahman Abdullah in a conversation about the proximity of death in the natural world. Emerging from the intersection of cultural and environmental perspectives, the project explores encounters with animal mortality and the broader implications of death. While their personal outlooks emerge from distinct rural and urban contexts, a sense of domesticity frames the exhibition within the shared experiences of childhood. Ravelled into a particularly Australian sense of place, death often provides our closest encounter with the extant animal ecology, whether wild, domestic, native or feral. Unpacking ideas of morbid curiosity, scarcity and abundance, nurture and slaughter, Dead Things invites audiences into the intimate spectacle of death.
Married since 2016, the artists live on a cattle property south of Perth with their baby daughter Aziza, sharing a studio surrounded by a living environment. Although their lives are entwined, overlapping personally and professionally, Dead Things is the first time they’ve collaborated on a project that speaks to the common core of their respective practices.
Castlemaine State Festival
Bethell Gallery, Castlemaine, VIC.
Curated by Dr Kent Wilson.
22 - 31 March 2019.
Married since 2016, the artists live on a cattle property south of Perth with their baby daughter Aziza, sharing a studio surrounded by a living environment. Although their lives are entwined, overlapping personally and professionally, Dead Things is the first time they’ve collaborated on a project that speaks to the common core of their respective practices.
Castlemaine State Festival
Bethell Gallery, Castlemaine, VIC.
Curated by Dr Kent Wilson.
22 - 31 March 2019.
Anna Louise Richardson, Goat, 2019, graphite on sliced paper, framed, 152 x 115cm.
Anna Louise Richardson, Carcass, 2019, charcoal on cement fibreboard, 240 x 91cm.
Anna Louise Richardson, Blowfly, 2019, graphite on paper, board, 65 x 65cm.
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Anna Louise Richardson, Waiting for Dad, 2016, graphite on paper, wood, 250 x 140 x 90cm. Photograph: Carl Warner. (detail on right)
Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Red, 2019, painted wood, tinted resin, 85 x 80 x 16cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Moore Contemporary.
Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Silver Gulls, 2019, painted wood, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Moore Contemporary.
Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, In the name, 2015, tinted resin, steel gambrel, galvanised chain, 140 x 65 x 25cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Moore Contemporary.
Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, The hunt, 2014, carved wood, stain, 135 x 140 x 75cm. Image courtesy of the artist, Martin George and Moore Contemporary.
Dead Things is supported by the Government of Western Australia through the Department, Culture and the Arts (WA).
