Thin Skin
Thin Skin is an exhibition of paintings by Australian and international artists who explore the liminal space between figuration and abstraction. Guest curated by Australian, London-based writer, curator and former editor of frieze magazine, Jennifer Higgie, it will feature works by more than thirty artists.
As a term, ‘thin skin’ is joyfully ambiguous. Thin Skin refers not only to the delicate membrane that separates body, mind and environment, but to other borders: thresholds between reason and unreason, wisdom and foolishness, life and death, the conscious and unconscious, laughter and weeping. To have ‘thin skin’ is to be hypersensitive to the world around you. Paint is a thin skin on a surface.
Some of the artists selected for Thin Skin employ absurdity, slapstick, parody, caricature and/or dreamlike logic to explore themselves and their place in the world. Others depict bodies in rich, often intertwined, conversations with the psyche, the land, domestic or work environments and with animals. Thin Skin also embraces the idea of ‘thin places’, an ancient term of mysterious provenance that refers to locations with a unique or peculiar energy. They are places that attract spirits; they appear when the distance between earth and heaven narrows. In Thin Skin, the ephemeral is made tangible.
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Thin Skin is an exhibition of paintings by Australian and international artists who explore the liminal space between figuration and abstraction. Guest curated by Australian, London-based writer, curator and former editor of frieze magazine, Jennifer Higgie, it will feature works by more than thirty artists.
As a term, ‘thin skin’ is joyfully ambiguous. Thin Skin refers not only to the delicate membrane that separates body, mind and environment, but to other borders: thresholds between reason and unreason, wisdom and foolishness, life and death, the conscious and unconscious, laughter and weeping. To have ‘thin skin’ is to be hypersensitive to the world around you. Paint is a thin skin on a surface.
Some of the artists selected for Thin Skin employ absurdity, slapstick, parody, caricature and/or dreamlike logic to explore themselves and their place in the world. Others depict bodies in rich, often intertwined, conversations with the psyche, the land, domestic or work environments and with animals. Thin Skin also embraces the idea of ‘thin places’, an ancient term of mysterious provenance that refers to locations with a unique or peculiar energy. They are places that attract spirits; they appear when the distance between earth and heaven narrows. In Thin Skin, the ephemeral is made tangible.
Artists on show
- Brent Harris
- David Egan
- David Noonan
- Denzil Forrester
- Donna Huddleston
- Dorota Jurczak
- Ellen Gronemeyer
- Gareth Sansom
- Gordon Bennett
- Gordon Bennett
- Helen Maudsley
- Jelena Telecki
- Jem Perucchini
- Jennifer Packer
- Jenny Watson
- John Spiteri
- Karen Black
- Karin Mamma Andersson
- Kieren Seymour
- Lisa Brice
- Mia Boe
- Michael Armitage
- Michelle Ussher
- Mitch Cairns
- Ms N Yunupiŋu
- Paul Becker
- Peter Graham
- Rose Wylie
- Rosslynd Piggott
- Sidney Nolan
- Tala Madani
- Tamara Henderson
- Tom Kreisler
- Tom Polo
- Tracey Emin
- Vivienne Shark LeWitt
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