McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery is celebrated as the home of Australian sculpture. With a wide-ranging collection of more than 100 sculptures, the park comprises 16ha of designed landscape and vast areas of indigenous bushland. The exhibition program focuses on the development of modern sculpture and various forms of spatial practice, and encourages contemporary artists to develop and address challenging issues current in Australia and a global context.
The exhibition Black Paintings, by Karingal-based artist Sanné Mestrom, presents a series of free-standing woollen tapestries on steel frames accompanied by a suite of gouache paintings. The works celebrate the textural qualities of the painting surface and reference a series of canvases by American artist Frank Stella from the 1960s. Stella’s Black Paintings occupy a pivotal place in art history and embody many of the contradictory impulses within late modernist artistic practice. As endearing objects encountered in the gallery space, Sanné’s tapestries act as mirrors, not for reality but for the viewer’s self as a curious and complex perceptual being.
Sanné’s practice often references iconic 20th century artworks in order to unpack the cultural, aesthetic and philosophical assumptions they carry. Through sculpture and painting she unsettles key notions such as the authentic work, the male genius, and the flat painting surface while exploring the complex relations between artist, object and viewer.
Sanné Mestrom: Black Paintings continues until November 11 at McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery, 390 McClelland Drive, Langwarrin.