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Simryn Gill
NATURAL RESEMBLANCE New photographic work by Singapore-born Sydney-based artist Simryn Gill, using botanical and linguistic systems to explore concepts of culture, nature and geography. A fold-out catalogue was produced with texts by the artist and Sharmini Pereira. Simryn Gill's first three photoseries, exhibited together under the title Natural Resemblance, were seductive images dealing with the complex relationships between the various systems of nature and culture, also invoking humankind's close relationship to the plant world. In 'Vegetation' the artist took the guise of a variety of plant species local to the landscape in which the images were photographed. While these images suggest a scientific or anthropological genre of photography (they were presented as small framed prints, as well as large-scale unframed images) they possessed a certain enigmatic quality that also characterised the other works in the show. For 'Rampant', Simryn photographed groups of plants growing together in unruly groups (bananas, bamboo), all species introduced into Australia. Within the vegetation, individual plants had been dressed in clothing common to South East and South Asia. In her catalogue notes Simryn refers to the idea of "anthropomorphising plants as a way of suggesting them as sentient beings." Simryn is perhaps best-known for her object-based work. Her first solo exhibition, at the EAF in 1992, included an American Indian head-dress constructed from red chillis. Her photoseries 'Forest' began as a way of recording temporary outdoor interventions where threads of printed text were woven into and around vegetation, so that streamers of printed words appeared as natural elements of palm trees and creeping vines. These images are arresting, not only for their beauty but also because they reveal the complexities of a 'natural' world interwoven by language. |
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above: documentation from the exhibition 'NATURAL RESEMBLANCE' |
image: Simryn Gill | Documentation Photography by Alan Cruickshank |