Tie One, The Spells Begun , The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū, June 15th – 1st September
Tie One, The Spell’s Begun, an enthralling new sculptural installation by Ōtautahi artist Jen Alexandra, casts a space for darkened contemplation. A smoky veil, tied ribbons and cords, bronze, bows, rose scent, altars and fairy doors combine to make a charged atmosphere in which the artists’ interest in nature-based worship comes through loud and clear.
To Alexandra, folklore is a way to understand ‘notions of spirit’ through intuitive technologies – and in this project, the ritual objects of elusive love. This project is site specific in that it responds to the interior gallery architecture – the arch shape is borrowed for doorways and the pink circles from the stained glass become orbs within charms.
The work also gestures to the neighbouring gardens in both its dedication to Victoria and the significance of its native foliage. The swathes of black fabric in the work are a nod to a dead Queen who, in her lifetime and grief, set the fashion for black mourning clothes, jet jewellery and funereal ornamentation – a veritable craze for the remembrance of death and shrine-making.
As Jasmine Gallagher wrote, “Alexandra seeks meaning within her European heritage from a persecuted female tradition, rather than the dominant male one. And in doing so, she challenges the postcolonial status quo by embracing an ecofeminist form of nature worship, in the creation of ritualistic objects that are fit for the twenty-first century.”
Oliver Weber Photography