From Andrew Frost…
There are ways of telling stories and then there’s the ways in which stories are remembered. Using biography in visual art is a dicey business, being either far too literal or bafflingly metaphorical, leaving the viewer without much to connect with. In Rhonda Dee’s Vessels and Voyages, elegant sculptural shapes and a faux-museum-style presentation contain the traces of stories but tantalisingly leave those stories open.
Dee’s work take as its basis the stories of migrants and their lives, their hopes and dreams, and then weaves them through a series of glass bottles, jars and orbs, all balanced and displayed against star-scapes and planetoids on glass shelves. Traces of text connect the works, but the show’s real strength is in understanding that less is more. Like the weird orbs in the Graybles series of episodes in Adventure Time, the viewer must connect the themes and stories together, the realisation of their connection charming and sweet.
Until October 31st
Bankstown Arts Centre, Bankstown
Pic: Rhonda Dee, Vessels and Voyages [installation detail], 2013. Image courtesy of the artist.
