WATCH | The Portrait Series Presented By RATIONALE
Viewing art as inseparable from the function of daily life and culture, RATIONALE believe in the intrinsic value of artmaking and the paths of connection it forms across our lives. Melbourne Art Fair is thrilled to share The Portrait Series – Presented by RATIONALE. Each video work is an in-depth look into the work and practice of four artists exhibiting at the 2022 Fair: Grant Stevens, Sullivan+Strumpf (Gadigal Country/Sydney, Naarm/Melbourne, Singapore); Sally Smart, Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert (Gadigal Country/Sydney); Jenna Lee, MARS Gallery (Naarm/Melbourne); and Alexander Knox, Murray White Room (Naarm/Melbourne).
Grant Stevens
Sullivan+Strumpf
Grant Stevens’ digital dreamscapes are deliberately imbedded with tension. The worlds he creates are romanticised renders of the real one we stand in, an arena dressed in symbols. Without pinning them to a linear binary, Stevens’ work is an exploration that exists between the digital world and the natural one and the nebulous space the two co-occupy in the era of modernity.
Sally Smart
Gallery Sally Dan-Cuthbert
Through the tangible act of cutting, Sally Smart’s work is an act of changing the narrative. Smart is interested in the ways we command our own story, what potential we have to redirect the script that was written for us by brutalised powers. Creating work that is instinctually feminist, Smart uncovers untold histories that feel urgent, tender, and sacred.
Jenna Lee
MARS Gallery
Through the delicate process of examining language and weaving it into form, Jenna Lee translates place and time into something tender, something alive. Artmaking for Lee is a matter of urgency, an essential expression of experience. Through her forms, Lee takes on a sense of responsibility to take that which may be painful and transform it into an object imbued with care, not just for the work itself but for the people whose stories it represents.
Alexander Knox
Murray White Room
The natural way of the world is chaos. Through experiments of form, sculpture and light, Alexander Knox explores the thin and ever-shifting veil that lies between order and disorder. His work poses a question with the answer dependent of the one answering it, creating an acknowledgment of infinite subjectivity of experience and interpretation.
