Exhibition: Poor Souls

Grace, along with sculptures by Andrew Blake, and etching by Sandy Robinson

Slow Unfurling, with paintings by Fiona Hall

I feel honoured to be part of the fabulous Poor Souls exhibition currently showing at the King Island Cultural Centre. The exhibition commemorates the 175th anniversary of the 1845 wreck of the Cataraqui, in which 400 lives were lost.

The exhibition was beautifully curated by Andrew Blake, along with a team of helpers. Works by many of King Island’s talented artists - Marilyn Chapman, Caroline Kininmonth, Clare Bell, Sandy Robinson, Dianne Blake, Andrew Blake, Alison Milsom, Roger Banfield, Nubar Ghazarian, Pam McKay and Bridget Levy - can be viewed alongside works by visiting artists – Raymond Arnold, Basil Hall, Mostafa Faraji, Melissa Smith, Katherine Cooper, Fiona Hall, and myself, all of whom have links of some sort with the island.

There is also an installation Unspoken, an ‘immersive acknowledgement’, by Julie Gough, Michelle Maynard and Sinsa Mansell in collaboration with the King Island community.

At twilight on the evenings of 19-21 March, Fathom was performed. This was described as ‘an elegy to those lost at sea in the search of sanctuary. A mesmeric dance shared between the human body and the ocean; a choreography in which the body submits itself to the whim of the waters’, accompanied by a mesmeric soundtrack. This work was created by Ian Moorhead, David Meagher, Bosco Shaw, Geoffery Watson and Lillian Steiner. 

Brian Ritchie’s trio were also in attendance over the weekend, playing some beautiful haunting melodies.

My contribution to Poor Souls comprised 6 large seaweed paper artworks depicting floating dresses, symbolising the victims’ souls which have been released into the sea’s watery peace. Floating free, liberated from earthly burdens, they begin their journey to the afterlife.

The Poor Souls exhibition concludes 11th April 2021.

Andrew Blake discussing his sculpture , with Mostafa Faraji’s painitng Martyr and Basil Hall’s print

Brian Ritchie Trio

Filna Hall’s series of paintings As Idle as a Painted Ship, with Andrew Blake’s sculpture Archaic Wurd

Unspoken, an installation by Michelle Maynard, Julie Gough and Sinsa Mansell

Nine Vessels for Precious Cargo by Roger Banfield and Alison Milsom, and etchings by Raymond Arnold

The Travellers, watercolour and gouache by Katherine Cooper, and Scene of the Lost, etching by Basil Hall

Fathom – a digitised elegy performed to those lost at sea in the search of sanctuary.

A collaboration of fIan Moorhead, David Meagher, Bosco Shaw, Lillian Steiner and Geoffery Watson.