Cecilia Tizard, Elena Misso, Isabella Capezio, Renato Colangelo — Material Thinking
28 June — 21 July 2024
Installation view Material Thinking, 2024
Material Thinking is Process: a series of actions performed by the body in space in relation to other objects.
The darkroom is a site where the body is invited to collaborate with chemicals, metals, light, and time. Physical interventions in the darkroom become repeated gestures: rocking trays, dripping chemistry off corners, counting seconds, coating, layering, and exposing paper to light, water, and chemistry.
Material Thinking is Practice: the application of an idea or method, repeated and performed.
The darkroom is a site where ideas materialise, experimentation and tangential play make space for new applications of the old. Elemental combinations interact and react to the enlarger. Work is constructed, ideas turn over, and turn corners. Darkroom rituals turn into sculptural works as processes intertwine with the body to become practice. Black and white darkroom printing, colour c-type printing, lumen printing, assemblages, and installation define the artist’s practice.
Material Thinking is Agency: a thing or person that acts to produce a particular result.
The darkroom is a site of focus and attention, where the body is in direct contact with the thing it creates. Vague goals and flickering ideas hinge on forces in and out of control.
Material Thinking is Matter: physical substances, a subject or situation.
The darkroom is a site where matter informs the process and creation of the work. Materials are sensitive and responsive; they require care and handling. Touch and sound magnify in the absence of light. Play and precision interact alongside a fan’s rattle, the dryer’s hum, and the swish of water.
Guest-curated by photographer, artist, PhD Candidate and friend of Hillvale, Isabella Capezio.
Catalogue
View full catalogue (PDF)
Install
Elena Misso is an emerging artist currently working primarily with darkroom processes and analogue photography. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at VCA in 2022, and over the past year have exhibited at TCB, Blindside, Bus Projects, CASPA, and Rising Festival. Recent works have been reproduced as projections for live music, and large-scale transparencies for public display.
website
Renato Colangelo is visual artist whose practice is focused on and concerned with cultural identity, social awareness and experimentation. Renato predominantly works photography, video and large-scale installations including room size camera obscuras (Standpoint, 2007, Eyes Lies & Illusions, ACMI; Locked Treasure Room, 2011, Centennial Gardens, Sydney; Dark Chamber, 2023, Centre for Contemporary Photography). He’s been exhibiting since 1997 with solo and group exhibitions including residencies in Italy and Australia along with being the recipient of various awards including the prestigious Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship in 2002. Renato employs analogue techniques in the production of his artwork and runs Nero Darkroom in Melbourne. Renato is also an arts worker, facilitating workshops and working with contemporary artists in printing, fabrication, production and installation.
@rcolangelofoto / website
Isabella Capezio is a photographer and artist living and working on stolen Wurundjeri Country. Isabella’s artwork and research connect themes of failure, power and queerness with landscape. Isabella has organised and facilitated various workshops at home and in the Asia Pacific. They are a PhD candidate experimenting with alternative ways to reflect on place, vision, nature and colonial frameworks of power.
@isabella_capezio
Cecilia Tizard is an emerging artist living and working on Kaurna Land/Adelaide. Graduating from Flinders University with a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Art), Cecilia’s practice primarily engages photography, exploring the intersection between traditional photography and abstract sculpture and installation. Cecilia’s recent work aims to uncover the physicalities of manual photographic practices, drawing parallels between photographic processes and domesticity. In 2022 Cecilia received the Commonwealth Private Undergraduate Award as an outcome to her graduate work in the Helpmann Academy Graduate Exhibition. In 2022, Cecilia exhibited work at ACE and FELTspace, her most recent major body of work was included in Studios:2022 at Adelaide Contemporary Experimental. Cecilia’s work was featured in the Supermarket Stockholm Art Fair in 2023, represented by FELTspace.