A large-scale mosaic art exhibition celebrating nature and resilience will open in Castlemaine on 3 April.
The ground-breaking collaboration led by internationally renowned mosaic artist Helen Bodycomb and involving seven emerging artists was created across multiple locations during the COVID-19 lockdowns restrictions in Victoria. It will be open Friday-Sunday each weekend in April 2021 at the Lot 19 Gallery in Castlemaine.
The ambitious collaboration titled ‘Synergy’ involves the arrangement of 450 mosaic vignettes. Each hand-cut item has been fabricated into a sunflower-inspired assemblage using the bi-directional geometric algorithm of the Fibonacci sequence. The work measures 2.8 metres in diameter. During 2020, each of the eight artists made cells at home, containing a tiny detailed scene featuring a human, animal or foliage narrative.
Inspired in part by Heironymous Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’, ‘Synergy’ celebrates cultural residue and is a more uplifting, whimsical and comic vision of social survival and ‘thrival’ in a COVID/post-COVID world.
Drawing on Greco-Roman traditions, the artists have also created ‘The Unswept Floor,’ a multi-panel floor installation depicting contemporary domestic foods and objects associated with eating, as if randomly strewn from a dining table.
During the Synergy Exhibition, Lot 19’s gallery annexe will also host a salon hang of recent works by the eight Synergy artists: Helen Bodycomb, Christine Baines, Rhonda McGuiness, Ruth Maclaren, Louise Marson, Christine Nixon, Amanda Tattam and Judith Watson.
This project enabled the group to gain strength and keep socially and creatively connected. Regular online meetings allowed concept development and planning and each person knew their ideas and style could be accommodated and celebrated to create a large unified work.
As Helen explains, “This project shows that while we were physically separated, we were connected by a common purpose and able to break down isolation. The project allowed us to build something positive in a year like no other, amidst a stressful time of great uncertainty,” says Helen.
The installations’ vignettes and elements were often made remotely and then mailed or personally delivered to Castlemaine and completed on-site.
“We worked together to overcome pessimism and develop a project that celebrates the ancient traditions of Roman mosaic, nature and resilience.“
Helen Bodycomb gratefully acknowledges Creative Victoria’s assistance through her receipt of a Sustaining Creative Workers Grant and the generous support of The Synergy Project Exhibition by the Regional Arts Fund, administered by Regional Arts Victoria.
http://www.lot19art.com/the-synergy-project/ For interviews and further details contact Helen Bodycomb on 0413 278 793
