Menu 
Arts & Entertainment Visual Arts Art matters
Arts & Entertainment Visual Arts Art matters
| Art matters |
| Written by Lucy Elliott |
| Wednesday, 13 May 2009 16:05 |
 Since the 1970s, Australian performance artist Jill Orr has been exploring the state of the environment.Orr began exploring environmental issues through the link between her own body and nature. The female body became, for Orr, a vehicle through which to explore the devastation of the earth. In a well known and still somewhat shocking series, Bleeding Trees, Orr’s body was strung-up crucifixion-style in a desolate land. In another image from the performance, Orr’s head was buried in the earth with only her gaping mouth visible. Such works made clear Orr’s desire to use performance as a way of dealing with psycho-social and environmental issues. Orr’s latest work, now on show at Jenny Port Gallery, continues the artist’s concerns with nature, culture, history and the environment. The performances that Orr enacts for the camera are shown to an audience through photographic documentation after the event. The two series on display, Faith in a Faithless Land and Southern Cross – to bear and behold, were shot on the waterless and salt-encrusted surface of Mitre Lakes in Victoria’s arid Wimmera district. The surface of this remarkable land reflects the images of Orr dressed as ghosts from our colonial past: missionaries and preachers and a kind of magical, shaman-like female character. Since 2004, Orr has collaborated with Indigenous communities to trace overlapping histories of Indigenous and non-Indigenous connections to place and environment. This concern with Australia’s past informs the current works, which invite the viewer to ‘look beneath’ the surface of the land and reflect on the ancient Indigenous past and what colonialism has done to eradicate it. Simultaneously, Orr is concerned with our current environmental crisis, specifically drought and salinity. What I found particularly powerful about these current works, aside from their sheer visual impact, was the sense of hope they embody – for regeneration and a future without further degradation. Orr frequently uses fire as a symbol to explore both destruction and resurrection. She has always conjured up a kind of magic in her works, a personal mythology through which her characters might save the earth. There are many layers to Jill Orr’s work, both conceptually and visually. The way the photographs capture Orr’s performance is mesmerising and will have you looking at the works from all angles. The symbolism inherent in the pieces invites the viewer to think about the ghosts of Australia’s past with transformative and healing intentions. Jill Orr - Faith in a Faithless Land Jenny Port Gallery Level 1, Albert Street, Richmond (Until May 30) www.jennyportgallery.com.au
Set as favorite
Bookmark
Email This
Comments (0)
 Write comment
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed