BELLE BASSIN & ALASDAIR MCLUCKIE
BROTHERS & SISTERS OF THE PALE FOREST
SAT 29 FEBRUARY UNTIL SAT 22 MARCH 2008
Belle Bassin's work emphasizes the secret, the hidden and the rejected aspects of reality. Her altar-like structures and obsessive drawings push toward the infinite, exploring concepts of the fragile state of human existence and the interconnected histories of folk patterning and symbolism. The inspiration behind her work lies in notions of Aliens, Rorschach inkblots, mythologies of ancient civilizations and the occult.
Alasdair McLuckie's current practise sympathetically utilises common materials to create ritualistic structures and drawings with an emphasis on folk aesthetics and obsessive patterning. The work explores concepts of creation and destruction, continual patterning and apparitions, often drawing inspiration from primitive art and cultures, shamanism and prophecy.
After completing diplomas in Visual Art at RMIT, Belle and Alasdair have both moved on to complete BAs in Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, Belle in the discipline of drawing, Alasdair across painting. In 2007 Belle was the recipient of the Wallara Travelling Scholarship, Westspace Award and George Hicks Award. Alasdair is recipient of the 2008 City of Melbourne Young Artist Grant. The artists have been working collaboratively since 2004.
There is a secret aspect of reality: All of history is created by future happenings; and in the corruptive space of 'between', objects are journeys, mediators to rejected knowledge. Destruction is inherent in any creative act as creation is inherent in any destructive act. Gateways are made in the Present to question our becoming and to create pathways to renewal; and these give rise to testimonies, to 'brothers and sisters of the pale forest.'*
*Jim Morrison, 'Celebration of the Lizard', Absolutely Live, 1970.
