curated by Brodie Cullen
12/11/22 - 27/11/22
Elisabeth Sulich
Brodie Cullen
Sam Stephenson
Oliver Scherer
Exhibition Text
Brodie Cullen, Oliver Scherer, Sam Stephenson and Elisabeth Sulich are four artists connected through shared experience; they are peers, colleagues and friends and make works responding to the relationships and environments they are part of and that they share in their day-to-day lives. Curated by Brodie Cullen, ‘925’ brings together artworks that are emblematic of this experience, working together to emulate a system of movement, a street or neighbourhood, a familiar but ambiguous cityscape that could be part of anyone’s 925.
Brodie Cullen’s work, 925, is a continued exploration into the artist’s interest in liminality and the transformation of recognisable objects, dependent on their setting. Using found office chair seats and bag straps to simulate what may look like a backpack, Cullen’s work is at once identifiable and disorienting. There’s a sense of déjà vu with Cullen’s work, where you feel like you know the object, like you’ve seen it before, but you can’t pinpoint where or when. It’s almost the thing, but it’s not. This feeling is shared and twisted by Elisabeth Sulich and her work, House, an artwork initially made as a gift for her father. House is an offering of time and affection and is made from discarded cardboard boxes, strawberry punnets, loo rolls, egg cartons and craft glue. House works allegorically to situate the viewer firmly within the 925, a dollhouse-esque reference to the many ways of life the every-day entails and the hundreds of twinkling lights in the windows of houses and buildings that reminds us of this.
Keys to the City is Oliver Scherer’s exploration into the systems of economy and consumption that fuel the capitalist hive of a metropolitan city. Stacked skyscrapers and cascading faces conjure the unwavering rapid heartbeat of a busy street or thoroughfare whilst celebrating human experience and connections within culture and community.
Sam Stephenson’s work is steeped in cultural reference and extends to the underground operating in the every-day through the artist’s interest in and exploration of subculture. While this term “subculture” suggests hidden or inaccessible communities and spaces, candid photography and spontaneous image capture reminds us of its prevalence and importance in the every-day.
There’s a feeling you get when you walk down a street that is familiar to you; it may be the street that you live on, maybe it’s your daily route to your favourite sandwich shop, or the path you take to work. It could be the place where you and your closest friends meet to then travel together down another set of streets that lead to your favourite pub or cinema. There’s comfort in the familiar, a sense of belonging, you become part of the landscape of that particular(particular because there are many) every day. Just as you notice the same young and busy-looking woman take her untrained Jack Russell out to relieve itself at 8.35am each morning, they notice you. Without knowing it, these repetitive passages and the signs, people, flora and fauna that inhabit them become part of a shared 925.
- Eva Izabela Balog