Ice / Plain as a Glass of Water, zinc gauze and found objects, various sizes.

When installed at the Adam Art Gallery/Te Pātaka Toi, University of Wellington, NZ in 2005 the Curator, Sophie Macintyre wrote online about this exhibition ‘Historically, Antarctica has captivated artists who have been compelled to represent its unfamiliar vistas. Whilst half of the artists in Breaking Ice have ventured south, others were inspired by their own fanciful imaginings of Antarctica. As a result many of the works draw on archival material, popular imagery and the artists’ own perceptions of this great white continent. In Breaking Ice fact and fiction, reality and illusion collided.’

Exhibition history of this work in its various iterations:

Safe Return Doubtful, Antarctic Rooms of the Canterbury Museum of Natural History, Christchurch, New Zealand 2003

Ice /Plain as a Glass of Water, Esa Jaske Gallery Chippendale, Sydney, Australia 2004

2004 The Year in Art, S.H. Erwin Gallery, Sydney, Australia 2004

Breaking Ice / Re-Visioning Antarctica, Adam Art Gallery, University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand 2005 and

Op Shop, Maitland Regional Gallery, Maitland, Australia 2015

Ice / Plain as a Glass of Water, zinc gauze and found objects, as installed in the visitor lounge of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch NZ in 2003 and as installed in Breaking Ice / Re-Visioning Antarctica, Adam Art Gallery, University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand in 2005

In the University of Wellington student magazine, Salient, Issue 21 2005 the visual arts Editor Renee Gerlich wrote of this work.. ‘A personal favourite; Fiona Davies’ works invites her audience to cast away the popular notions of the bravery of the explorers, instad offering a counterpoint to the heroic masculine. Referencing the everyday activities many of the explorers were forced to undertake Davies uses buttons in a 90 zinc panel work to celebrate previously hidden stories of domesticity within the myths of heroic expeditions.’

Ice /Plain as a Glass of Water, as installed in Esa Jaske Gallery Chippendale, Sydney, Australia 2004 and in the 2004 The Year in Art, S.H. Erwin Gallery, Sydney, Australia 2004

This work was devloped as part of the 2003 Safe Return Doubtful exhibiton at the Antarctic Gallery and adjacent visitor lounge of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch in NZ. When I was reading the manuscripts held in the Cantebury Museum collection I became increasingly aware of the enjoyment of the domestic felt by members of expeditions to the Antarctic. In a diary addressed to his fiancee, Frederick Hopper, a crew member on Scott’s last expedition wrote on thje 8th February 1912 that

I’ve washed all my clothes, about half a dozen suits of underclothes and have been mending them today. I can tell you I can do anything with a needle.

Within this domesticted context and thinking of the Ross Sea Ice Shelf, a roughly vertical face of ice about 200 miles long and about 200 feet high, I developed this work made from found buttons wored into bases or panels constructed from zinc gauze. The buttons are decorative and form a seductive surface with the patina of use from everyday shirts and pants. They recall rows of tiny buttons taking hours to do up and undo, the bottles of buttons in the sewing basket of my mother and grandmothers, mother of pearl buttons sourced as part of the personna of the European style of dress and buttons that are kept and then easily disposed of as being replaceable but not valuable.

The zinc sheeting has been punched with a regular patterning of holes to form a gauze. These perforations in the zinc allow thorugh or seperate and locate the point of change or transition where something is held and something is allowed to pass,such as the seperation of air needed to ventilate the meat safe yet keep the flies on the outside. The ice shelf is also a point of transition, holding as well as allowing to pass.

Ice / Plain as a Glass of Water, zinc gauze and found objects, as installed in the Op Shop exhibition at Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland, Australia in 2015

Above and below two details of - Ice / Plain as a Glass of Water, zinc gauze and found objects, various dates and various sizes

The NZ academic Diedre Brown outlined in her speech to mark the opening of Safe Retrun Doubtful … ‘A wall work made of buttons and gratings reinterprets the changing colour, sparkle and if security does not see you run your hands over it, the gentle sounds of the Ross Ice Shelf. ‘