On this page - a selected number of solo and group exhibitions and screenings in Museums, Galleries and Festivals. Click on the ‘More Information’ button to find additional images and text for each listing.
Tracing the Rupture at Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Australia, 2023
Davies’ work of video and installation, Wearing the Uniform of the Patient was presented in the group exhibition, ‘Tracing the Rupture’ curated by Hayley Poynton at Blue Mountains Cultural Centre.
A hospital gown is the uniform of the patient - the recognisable signifier of their status within the power structure of the medical system. Putting on the hospital gown marks the point of rupture between the life before being admitted to hospital and being ‘the patient’ in hospital.
Mosaic at The Golden Age Cinema in Surry Hills Sydney Australia
and MashUp I and II at the Shades bar/nightclub under Central Station Sydney. Presented by MAPBM.
For this group screening, five two to ten minute films included Fiona Davies’ work Once upon a time Long Ago and Far Away: Wearing the Uniform of the Patient. This is one of the ten fairy tales that form the framework of her performative work Once Upon a Time Long Ago and Far Away: The Patient Remade’.
The four other artists who presented work were Naomi Oliver, Cinzia Cremona, Sean O’Keeffe and Ken Lambert.
Carnivale Catastrophe presented by MAPBM for Cementa22 Kandos NSW 2022
As a response to the emotional landscapes of the 2019/2020 bushfires Davies presented the work and performance titled 'Is that Cocteau’s Horse?
The relationship of responsibility and an acknowledgement of the failure of that relationship to mitigate the damage done by death and injury to the domesticated horse population informed many residents emotional landscape of the aftermath of the fires.
This project was supported by Festivals Australia, The NAB Foundation, FRRR and Cementa.
Lumière Mount Victoria Festival of the Moving Image, presented by MAPBM in Mount Victoria Australia 2022
The curator of Lumiere, Bec Waterstone described the festival as being made up of g ‘… the multifaceted trajectories of the moving image over time and space. We journey from its earliest beginnings, when the Lumière brothers, and Eadweard Muybridge brought the first cinematic experiences into the world; via the famous, first-ever ‘science-fiction’ silent film, Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip To The Moon) by Georges Mèliérs; … culminating in contemporary digital artworks employing experimental new-media processes.
Two of Davies’ works were selected for this festival, the short video, Memorial/Time of Death and the performative work, Once Upon a Time, Long Ago and Far away: A Short History of Removal.
Cessnock Contemporary, Cessnock Tennis Club, NSW Australia 2021
The SCAMP mentoring project in Cessnock, NSW Australia culminated in the exhibition Cessnock Contemporary. This included a suite of works by Fiona Davies 'Blood on Silk: The Uniform of the Patient: Hanging up neatly'.
This mentoring project, SCAMP was developed by Dr Merryn Hull in the Cessnock LGA. Eight high school students were paired with professional artists and the mentoring extended over the last Covid lockdown. Davies’ mentee was interested in the skin and bones of the body as the structure and surface of the art practice of tattooing. Working collaboratively, they focused on the body. Photo credit Penny Dunstan
Tactus, 17th Athens Digital Arts Festival, Athens, Greece 2021
The festival focused on the idea of touch, a redefinition of human connection, both as a form of communication and physical contact. Davies’ work Once upon a time long ago and far away: shutting down in isolation, video 4’15” was part of the official selection for this festival. The festival website is https://online.adaf.gr/
Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney, Australia. 2021
Space YZ was a group exhibition of the student and early career works of eighty eight practicing artists/graduates from the now defunct Art School at Western Sydney University. Fiona Davies completed an undergraduate visual arts degree at that art school in 1986. Three of Davies’ works were selected by the curator Daniel Mudie Cunningham. They were School Fire x 2, and My Grandad always said, ‘It’s easier to clean up after a fire than a flood’.
Riddoch Arts Centre, Mount Gambier, South Australia. 2020
An expert panel of Simon Biggs, CJ Taylor, Merilyn de Nys, Melentie Pandilovski, Serena Wong and Melissa Horton picked Davies’ work Once upon a time long ago and far away: shutting down in isolation, 2020, video, 4’15” for the International Limestone Coast Video Art Festival at the Mount Riddoch Art Centre, Mount Gambier, South Australia.
Plas Bodfa, Wales, UK 2020
Unus Multorum, (One of Many) Plas Bodfa Objects, Wales, UK contained this suite of ten small sculptures by Fiona Davies. Blood on Silk: Try to hide/try to stand out, No’s 1 to 10, 2020, variable size each approximately 12 x 10 x 10(h)cm, Balsa wood, paint, found objects. These works are a speculation about the implications of farming humans for blood plasma, whole blood and body parts. In those situations the individual producer is one of many. They are anonymous.
Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba, Australia 2020
Fiona Davies was commissioned by the curator Sabrina Roesner to produce the work Once upon a time long ago and far away: shutting down in isolation, video 4’15” for the group online exhibition, Shift + Control + Exit at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Katoomba Australia. Website https://www.shiftcontrolexit.com/
Golden Age Cinema, Surry Hills Sydney Australia 2019
This suite of three short fairy tales by Fiona Davies was screened at the Golden Age Cinema, Sydney Australia under the title Once upon a time long ago, and far away x 3. Click on the more information button to watch the three videos.
This was Davies first screening of video works in a cinema.
Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, University of Sydney, Australia 2019
The solo exhibition Cast a cold eye on life, on death: The Remake: Medicalised Death in ICU, was shown by Davies in three of the gallery spaces at the Kirkbride campus of the SCA Gallery, University of Sydney, Australia .The thesis accompanying this exhibition can be viewed/downloaded from the University of Sydney Library website at https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/21232 Cast a Cold Eye on Life, On Death is a quote from W.B.Yeats
Photo Credits Alex Gooding and Alex Wisser
The State Silk Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2019
The solo site-specific exhibition Woven Architecture in sites 1 and 2 was developed on site by Davies and then exhibited at The State Silk Museum in Tbilisi, Georgia initially from July 1st to October 2019.
Woven Architecture was a site specific weaving in two sites within the museum. The weaving was made of satin ribbon and is made of and on the architecture of the site. In this work, Davies responded to the institutional interiors of the State Silk Museum in Tbilisi making a site-specific weaving using satin ribbon in shades of off white and black. The structure of the weaving was made solid by the architecture and the tension or stability of the weave was the stability and tension of the architectural elements. Photo Credit Alex Gooding
Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba, Australia 2019
A group exhibition titled Resilience in the times of adversity, Contemporary responses to WWII, was devised and curated by Vivienne Dadour for the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba, NSW, Australia. Vivienne selected the work Coughing up Blood for this exhibition. During most of World War II tuberculosis was treated by isolation, rest, nutrition and clean air. Sanatoriums to provide treatment including isolation had been set up in the Blue Mountains for many years. Infected soldiers were treated, coughed up blood and sometimes died of the disease.
Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, University of Sydney, Australia 2018
The solo installation Blood on Silk: Where they were last seen was installed at the SCA gallery at the University of Sydney, in the exhibition Being towards Death curated by Tian Kang and Yunyan Tang as part of the Masters of Curating degree at the University of Sydney. At the Verge Gallery Fiona Davies’ work Racing Patience ICU was installed as part of the group exhibition ‘In Translation’. Photo Credit Alex Gooding
Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, Australia 2018
In a project of cooperation, collaboration and communication four Hunter Valley based galleries and institutions shared their collections, and reexamined their district through the lens of red. ‘We are Hunter Reds, but red is also the earth on which we stand and share; the symbol of celebration and revelry, our flesh and blood; and our political unrest.’ The institutions were Lake Macquarie Regional Gallery, Maitland Regional Gallery, Newcastle Art Gallery, and The Lock-Up. In addition the Newcastle Museum was involved in the project development phase.
Three of Fiona Davies’ works were selected from the collection of the Maitland Regional Art Gallery for the group show Hunter Red: Corpus at the Newcastle Art Gallery. They were Memorial / Time of Death No. 3, 2008, print on paper, 90 x 110 (h) cm, Memorial/Time of Death, video, 3 minutes 30 seconds, 2008, and Blood on Silk: Blood Alcohol Content, 2014, print on paper 30 x 20(h) cm
Verge Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia 2018
Curated by Faye Chen, Karen Cheng, Amber Fu, Rachael Helmore, Tian Kang, Yunyan Tang and Danyi Wang the exhibition In Translation introduced the works, Racing Patience ICU 2018 and its associated performances to a new audience within the curatorial examination of the concept of translation being a concept of challenge and restructuring. Photo Credit Alex Gooding
Casula Arts Centre, Casula, Sydney, Australia 2017
The work Last Seen was selected by the curator Lizzy Marshall for the First Turbine Hall Commission at Casula Powerhouse, Casula, Sydney, Australia. The turbine hall at Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Sydney, Australia is the first space entered by the visitor. It is large, at first glance it is apparently empty, a space approximately 13.8 metres high by 12.7 metres wide and 26.5 metres deep. The ground floor of the hall is the site of multiple points of transition and multiple points of decision making, some of which relate directly to the architecture and some to the usual patterns or paths of passage in this architectural space resulting in an invisible crisscrossing pattern of use. As in most hospitals once you enter the doors you have to make a decision about where you are going and it maybe the last time you are seen.
Photo credit A. Todic
Science Gallery, University of Melbourne, Australia 2017
Blood: Attract and Repel was the inaugural popup exhibition for the Melbourne Science Gallery. It was installed in the Frank Tate Building in the University of Melbourne Parkville campus. Originally built in 1939-1940 the building had many art deco elements both in the design of its exterior and interiors.
Riddoch Arts Centre, Mount Gambier, South Australia. 2017
These five prints Blood on Silk: Commercial Quality No.’s 1, 2, 4, 8 and 10, 2017 photographic print 120 x 80(w)cm, were selected for a group exhibition, Rise of the Bio Society Riddoch Gallery Mt Gambier, S.A. Australia curated by Melentie Pandilovski. These five works have since been acquired by the collection of the Mount Gambier Art Gallery, S.A. Australia
The other artists in the exhibition were Eduardo Kac, Niki Sperou, Critical Art Ensemble, Helen Pynor, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Paul Thomas, Trish Adams, Guy Ben-Ary & Boryana Rossa, Gary Cass, Andre Brodyk, Svenja Kratz, and Michalis Pichler.
Stacks Projects, Potts Point, Sydney Australia 2017
In Overlook, a two person exhibition with Anita Bacic, two works were shown - Blood on Silk: Blood Fountain and Blood on Silk: Bleeding Out . Both works focus on blood and blood products in transit, or in motion. The movements and transitions of blood and blood products through the human body, from one body to another, from one part of one body to another part, and from within the body to permanently outside the body are located in a range of economic, technological, and social contexts. The movements of body parts from one body to another is always assisted, can occur through both legal and illegal channels, and can involve both live and dead producers. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Old Government House, Parramatta Sydney Australia 2017
Two of my works, Blood on Silk: Buy/Sell, 2017, and Blood on Silk Import/Export 2017, were selected for the group exhibition, Governance by the curator Lizzy Marshall. In this exhibition she asks’ What is the role of governance today? The predominate response is to examine the ’silent, the assumed and the imposed or unvoted for.’
She wrote of the two works in the catalogue that ‘ Fiona Davies’ installations formulate a diptych within the mirrored offices of The Butler’s Pantry and the Governors Office. Divided by a stairwell, the traffic flow further unites the flow of power between them. Davies site-responsive instalations are a continuation of her seminal Blood on Silk project. ……. Davies centers her work on the commerce of blood products and their regulated distribution- a far cry from the Colonial commerce that would have occurred within both offices, but a commerce that would have harnessed much currency if it had been around in Colonial times.’ Photo Credit Alex Gooding
Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, University of Sydney, Australia 2017
My work Blood on Silk: Last Seen at SCA, was selected for a group exhibition, ephemera at the Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, University of Sydney by the curators Clara Cheong, Pamela Hale, Jeanie Ho, Sharon Hong, Elsa Kwok and Alana Leslie.
The other artists in the exhibition were Clache Raong, Ema George, Jeanie Ho and Harry Seeley. Photo Credit Alex Wisser
Beaney House of Knowledge, Canterbury, UK 2016
My artist book/instructional manual, Blood on Silk : Bleeding Out (Internally) The Book was selected for the group exhibition Prescriptions at The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, Canterbury, UK. It was jointly selected by Egidija Čiricaitė and Dr. Stella Bolaki/University of Kent. This book, Bleeding Out (Internally) consists of two parts, A and B. The sizes of the two parts are slightly different so it is not obvious that they belong together. Part A is a picture book intended to be touched, pages turned and held close by the reader. The images are representations of the sublime in the materiality of blood or bleeding out (internally). Part B is an instructional manual trying to make sense of a short, traumatic, catastrophic event such as uncontrollable internal bleeding. The patient and the witness experience this event simultaneously but not together
Peacock Gallery and Auburn Arts Studio and Auburn Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia. 2016
The group exhibition Open Field was curated by Kon Gouriotis. He selected a small work from my Buttoned Up series to be the starting point for the creation of a black perspex replica. Gouriotis wrote in his catalogue essay that ‘ Open Field is project in two parts, to be shown simultaneously as an exhibition and a site specific installation. One component is presented in the Peacock Galleries adjacent to the entrance of the Auburn Botanic Gardens, the other within the gardens. The galleries were formerly a kiosk and the Gardens rescued the Duck River so the exhibition is a mediation on, and a metaphor for, change and transformation. The intention is to expand Black’s Utopian vision by placing works by 15 artists from Western Sydney in the Galleries and an enlarged three dimensional geometric replica of each work, made from black transparent acrylic (perspex) in 10 different locations within the gardens.
Blood on Silk/Bleeding Out at Airspace, Marrickville, Australia 2016
Her Moving Presence was curated by Yvette Hamilton and Danica Knezevic. They selected the work Blood on Silk/Bleeding Out metal, glass, paint, ink, projection and found objects, 135 x 78 x 96(h)cm. for the exhibition of female artists working with moving image.
The curators focused on the ideas of implied and actual presence. Art Academic Jacqueline Millner questions in the catalogue essay - ‘ What happens when the moving image renders the the invisible visible, and the significance of this to scientific scopic regimes informs the work of Ella Condon and Fiona Davies ….Davies Blood on Silk Bleeding Out scrutinises the medical gaze - from the microscope to the total surveillance of intensive care - and its infiltration of our embodied experience.”
Photo Credit Alex Wisser
Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland Australia 2015
Prior to his retirement in 2015 Maitland’s long time Director, Joe Eisenberg organised what he described as one last begging exhibition of works on paper that were to be donated to add to the gallery’s collection through the exhibition, The piano has been drinking not me. A total of just under one hundred and seventy Australian artists responded to this idea.
My work Blood on Silk: Blood Alcohol Content 2014, 30 x 20 (h) cm digital print was my response to Joe’s begging letter.
West Gallery, Hazelbrook, Australia 2015
This work Blood on Silk: Magenta, 2015, 285 x 285 cm, ribbon, paint and canvas was selected for the group exhibition Unfolded curated by Beata Geyer at West Gallery in Hazelbrook. In this work the codified pattern of eight drops of blood falling from one metre onto a hard surface is further coded into a weaving pattern, using satin ribbons and solid canvas. Through variations of the dyed colour magenta and the reflective properties of the satin weave in the ribbon, the work responds to the position of the viewer relative to the angle of light as a photonic device. In addition the location of the work in the gallery space exposes the sideways view of the work to the casual passing viewer in the corridor. Magenta as a name for a colour has been linked with war and bloodshed since the name of the aniline dyestuff Fuchsine was changed in 1859 to magenta to celebrate the French victory at the battle of Magenta in northern Italy. Photo Credit Alex Gooding
The Whitebox, Griffith University Gallery, Gold Coast Campus, Queensland, Australia 2014
Installed at Artspace Sydney in late 2013, the work Blood on Silk: As per instructions I was exhibited in the exhibition, Notes on the Work a survey exhibition by Ian Milliss. Here at Whitebox it was joined by As per instructions 2, 3 and 4. As part of Milliss’ open ended practice, Ian had given instructions to other artists for the production of artworks, referencing works he made in the early 1970s. These instructions were – use strips of fabric 200 to 250mm wide each painted a single colour and then nail to the wall as you want
The three later works Blood on Silk: As per Instructions 2,3 and 4 were made in 2014 again referencing the code of the barber’s pole and its subsequent distortion or mutation. The code utilised in the first of this series is the pattern made by eight drops of blood falling from one metre.
The State Silk Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia 2014
The work Blood on Silk: Tbilisi, 2014, installation, silk paper, rice paper found objects, paint, stickers, video and thread, dimensions variable is a site specific installation over two rooms in The State Silk Museum . The site is one of the oldest silk museums in the world located in the capital city of Georgia, a country with a complex role in the former silk routes. The exhibition space was layered. On the wall were mounted a continuous array of drawings and collages referencing the intersections or overlay of the silk route and the new trading routes for bioproducts including blood. About 40 cm out from the wall large sheets of silk paper hung from the ceiling almost to the floor. Photo Credit Alex Gooding
Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney , Australia 2014
Blood on Silk: Campbelltown was a survey show of six of the major works from the Blood on Silk series to that date . The works were - Blood on Silk: Turn to/turn away. Blood on Silk: As per Instructions 1,2 3 and 4 2013-2014, canvas, paint and nails, Blood on Silk: Site of Production 2014 Video 2.20 mins. As installed at Campbelltown Arts Centre projected onto a black wall, Blood on Silk: Field of Flowers, 2013, canvas, paint, fabrics and found objects, each plinth 60 x 80 x70 cm(h) and painted wall section size variable and Blood on Silk: Campbelltown conflated with Blood on Silk: Trade 2011, 2012 and 2013, 2011-2014, silk paper and video, dimensions variable. Photo Credit Alex Wisser
Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland, Australia 2013
I curated the group exhibition Op Shop over all of the galleries of the Maitland Regional Art Gallery and included a number of my own works that reflected my practice of op shopping. The other artists selected for the exhibition component were Nicole Barakat, Cath Bowen, Fiona Davies, Sarah Goffman, Fiona Hall, Donna Marcus, Kiri Morcombe, Luke Roberts, Surabhi Saraf, Louise Saxton, David Sequeira, Maeve Woods, The Modified Toy Orchestra, Toydeath, Raqs Media Collective and Lex Rogers. Photo Credit Alex Gooding
James Hockey Gallery, University of the Creative Arts, Farnham, U.K. 2013
The work Blood on Silk: Farnham, 2010-2012, Silk paper, video and found objects, Dimensions variable was commissioned by Professor Lesley Millar for the University’s gallery. In the speech to open this exhibition Professor Simon Olding of the University of the Creative Arts in Farnham said ‘ Here, in the James Hockey Gallery, Fiona Davies has made a deeply contemplative, but also in its serene and powerfully considered way, rousing and challenging work. It is both rooted in this one place and complex in its multiple metaphors. These are personal and broadly human, subjective as well as elemental. Our entry into this major work feels like a private journey, an unfolding, wrapping and wafting; a breathing of life and loss. It is an extraordinary work both for its repetitive and mnemomic associations and its strength of sheen, its tearings and gossamered power; its whiteness and the mark of blood adjacent to the white papered hanging.Make it stand out. Photo Credit Alex Gooding
Artspace, Sydney, Australia 2013
An survey exhibition of the work of Ian Milliss, Notes on the Works included my work As per Instructions I. In his multi part exhibition, the artist Ian Milliss included a series of instructional works which had been made and remade by others over the years of his practice. The Instructions to me for this work were relatively simple - I was to use strips of canvas, 200mm or so wide and what ever length I wanted, make them whatever colour I wanted and nail the strips to the wall in whatever way I wanted.
Photo Credit Alex Gooding
Macquarie University Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia 2013
Curated by Rhonda Davis and John Potts the exhibitions Bound and Unbound consisted of two parts. One within the university library exhibition space and the other in the art gallery. My work Collaboration starting with twenty-three units of blood, 2013 tablet, digital content, metal, silk, paper, ink and pen 32 x 31 cm (closed) was selected for the Unbound exhibition in the art gallery..
‘Like the travelogue of Twentysix Gasoline Stations (produced in 1963 by Ed Ruscha) this book uses a combination of old and new means of interaction to track a journey. The sobering question examined in text and image is what happens to a collaborative partnership when one party dies. Physical markers of the collaboration punctuate the journey in a similar manner to the photographs of service stations in Ruscha’s book, while the text allows a nuanced reflection to develop. An essay by Ann Finnegan explores the question of the impact of a death on a collaborative partnership.
Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland, NSW, Australia 2013
Curated by Cheryl Farell, the group exhibition Dark Edges of the Collection included my 2008 video work Memorial/Time of Death. Cheryl wrote of this work in the catalogue that” ….in the video work Memorial/Time of Death, flowers so often a witness of death, have been filmed over a period of time, slowly deteriorating. Projected onto a dark wall this work becomes emotionally potent as the edges of the iamges become ambiguous, conveying the concept that ‘the time of death” is fluid and there is often no one particular moment in which we can determine the moment of absence.
Parramatta Artist Studios, Parramatta, Sydney Australia, 2012
In the last of three curated exhibitons about death I included another of my works, Blood on Silk / Death 3. This exhibition was titled Death 3, I Don’t Think We’re In Kansas Anymore.
The exhibition room sheet stated that in this exhibiotn ‘Artists query what remains of the physical body to expand or imnaginngs of death. They do not seek to minimse our contatc or exposure to death. They engage with the ambiguus emotional and physical realities experienced by individuals and communities in responding to an finding meaning in death.
More details about the other artists in this exhibition and the other two in this series about death are listed under curatorial. Photo Credit Alex Wisser
Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra, Australia 2011
Bad Girls ( 20 witness 1000) was curated by Anni Doyle Wawrzynczak . Included in the exhibition was my work Memorial/Australia, Picton-Vinnies, Tahmoor-Lifeline, Jul - Dec 1999 Coll Davies. This exhibition celebrated the more than one thousand women artists who had exhibited at Canberra Contemporary Artspace since its opening as the Bitumen River Gallery in Manuka in the ruins of the former St Christopher school bus shelter. Now the CCAS is recognised as a leading contemporary art space in Australia.
Wawrzyncak wrote in the catalogue that’ Davies’ work explores’ the layered domestic feminine … and Davies’ domestic signifiers propose the need for armour; its repetitions the motif for generations of women in the home’
Culture at Work Accelerator Gallery, Pyrmont, Sydney Australia 2011
This marks the first public presentation of work from the Blood on Silk collaboration between Dr Peter Domachuk, Dr Lee Ann Hall and Fiona Davies. This works Blood on Silk 1 and 2 were made during the exhibition period resulting in the final work shown here. Large sheets of handmade silk paper were glued to the floor and hung from the ceiling as if skinning the room. The feel was of connective tissue replacing the architecture of the space with another form of architecture no less strong.
Photo Credit Alex Wisser
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Garden Museum, 5 Lambeth Palace Road, London, UK 2010
A series of five prints made up the exhibition Memorial/ Time of Death No’s 1-5. installed in the temporary exhibition space a the garden Museum.. In this series of photographic prints the slow wilting/death/decay of a particular flower as an indication of the time at which death can be called or could be said to have happened is ambiguous.
The Garden Museum occupies the previously abandoned church of St Mary at Lambeth situated next to the River Thames and Lambeth Bridge. . In the grounds of the former church is the tomb of the plant hunter and gardener, John Tradescant
Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland, Australia 2009
Intangible Collection,2009, rice paper, wood, video, sound, video, paint, ink, photographs, found objects historical items on loan, oral histories, an installation 7.8 x 20metres was a solo exhibition commissioned by the Gallery Director Joe Eisenberg OAM for the official opening in 2009 of the new exhibition spaces and buildings.
The gallery space was located in the former museum and then teaching areas. It was divided by formal arches into two space. One consisted of historical objects on loan, oral histories of former students and teachers located as components of a contemporary installation. The other larger section was entered from the former main entry of the TAFE building and overlaid an installation with objects on loan from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences who ran a museum in this space until the floods of 1955. Photo Credit Alex Wisser.
Parramatta Artist Studios, Parramatta, Sydney Australia, 2008
In the first of three exhbitions I curated at Parramatta Artist Studios circled around the idea of death. I included my work Memorial/Time of Death in that exhibiton. The work was projected onto a black painted, fairly rough plaster wall. In this photo the texture of the wall clearly shows through and informs the work.
More details about the other artists in this exhibition and the other two in this series about death are listed under curatorial. Photo Credit Alex Wisser
Blacktown Arts Centre, Sydney Australia 2008
The Installation Memorial/ When I was Younger was commissioned by the Blacktown Arts Centre in response to the history of the former school buildings. The installation was made of several independent works working in three rooms of the heritage site.
Oceania Centre, University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji 2005
The philosopher, Epeli Hau’ofa founded the Oceania Centre at U.S.P. in 1997. It was a ground breaking art/culture facility embedded within the landscape of the Pacific. The work Memorial/Hanky was exhibited at the Centre during my artist residency. As the work was installed under a curved open air roof it was decided that the work should be raised and lowered everyday as if it were a flag. The evening lowering of the work became a well attended event in the daily life of the Suva campus of the university.
Adam Art Gallery/Te Pātaka Toi, University of Wellington, NZ. 2005
The curator Sophie Macintyre selected my work Ice/ Plain as a glass of water for the exhibition Breaking Ice/ Revisioning Antarctica. . She wrote in the exhibition catalogue that this exhibition explored the ways in which Antarctica has been perceived and imagined, historically and culturally. Featuring work by eight contemporary artists from New Zealand and Australia, Breaking Ice presented visual translations of experiences, perceptions and fantasies of Antarctica in distinctive and critical ways, playfully critiquing the processes of Antarctica’s visual representation and revealing the ways that it has been mythologised.
This exhibition was toured in 2006 to the Invercagill Museum, Invercagill in the South island of New Zealand.
S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney, Australia 2004
The Year in Art 2004 exhibition aimed to present the best works selected from exhibitions that had been held at Sydney commerial art galleries throughout the year of 2004. The three invited selectors, Laura Murray Cree, Nick VIckers and Jane Watters, viewed most of the exhibitions throughout the year and nominated fourty-eight works that they believed represented the scope of contemporary art practice. My work Ice/Plain as a Glass of Water was nominated by Nick Vickers.
Penrith Regional Gallery: Home of the Lewers Bequest 2003
For the major group exhibition, Anita and Beyond, I was commissioned to make the installation Which one’s you?, 2003, paper, ink, cloth wood and light. 4.5 x 3 x 2.5(h) metres. What happened to Anita Cobby sixteen years prior to this exhibition still shapes and informs the Western Sydney suburbs. On her way home from work on Sunday 2nd February 1986 Anita was kidnapped, raped and murdered. Her body was found in a cow paddock near Blacktown on Tuesday the 4th. Five men, John Travers, Michael Murdoch, Leslie Murphy, Michael Murphy and Gary Murphy were arrested, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment and labelled never to be released. Twelve artists made new works for this exhibition.
Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, NZ 2003
In 2003 the installation Safe Return Doubtful was installed into the Antarctic Gallery, sound booth and the adjacent visitor lounge. The material and how it was interpreted was primarily the male participants from the heroic period of exploration. The history selected tended to priviledge the expeditions that had gone down to the Antarticfrom Lyttleton near Christchurch. The Museum’s photographic and ephemera archive as well as their collection of objects was worked with in this layered interpretation that focused on the particular, the domestic and the minute.
The Physics Room Christchurch NZ 2002
One Only was a solo installation responding to five objects from the Canterbury Museum I investigated through the museum’s archives, museum practice and interpretation. ‘Sydney artist Fiona Davies works site specifically, often in historic homesteads in Australia, creating works which utilize the morass of household debris of former residents, transforming the domestic and the everyday objects into installations which simultaneously pay homage to, and critique, the lives of the previous occupants. Davies ’s work for the Physics Room has been developed in conjunction with the Canterbury Museum, utilizing artifacts from the Museum’s collection, creating work which sits in an ambiguous position within art and museum practice, and questioning the location of meaning in traditional ethnographic practice which privileges object over context.’
Gallery 19, Haymarket, Sydney Australia 1998
The solo exhibition Buttoned Up was made up of thirty small works, a wallpapered wall and two small sculptural objects, House 1 and 2. These works were formed at the junction where something is held and another thing is allowed to pass. For these objects the interest is in the perforations , the point of transition, the separation where noodles are kept and the water discarded, and in the ventilation of the meat safe and the security screen.
Memories are held by objects, by the buttons, colanders, steamers and furniture and become the ornamental and decorative overlayig the everyday. The traditional means of patterning such as sewing, knotting, cutting and pasting were used and locate the works in my cultural tradition. Photo Credit Alex Gooding
Penrith Regional Gallery: Home of the Lewers Bequest 1995
This group exhibition, It’s Two to One at Lewers was presented to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of International Women’s Day and the launch of of Professor Joan Kerr’s publication Heritage: the National Women’s Art Book, 500 works by women artists from colonial times to 1955. The artists were Patricia Prociv, Davida Wiley and myself. We had been working for some time on collaborative exhibitions after having gone to art school together. Lee-Ann Hall wrote in the catalogue essay that “Theirs is an investigation of those social institutions, beliefs, values, and words which have kept women upright, laced, powdered,lipsticked and coiffured, yet have kept hidden or denied the exitence, desires and dreams of real female bodies and beings.
Canberra Contemporary Art Space 3 Manuka, ACT Australia 1994
in the installation That’s such a pretty dress, dear I sought to construct a history which acknowledged the range of women alive in Australia during the first and second World Wars. The bits of history constructed are sometimes coincident and sometimes contradictory. The listing of names and dates is the schoolchild’s perception of all that is important in history. What is important is that they are mostly no longer here they are the absent presence.