Museums and Galleries
Adam Art Gallery/Te Pātaka Toi, University of Wellington, NZ. 2005
The curator Sophie Macintyre choose my work Ice/ Plain as a glass of water for the exhibition Breaking Ice. She wrote in the exhibition catalogue that Breaking Ice: ReVisioning Antarctica 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 NZ.
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.”
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.
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
Blacktown Arts Centre, Sydney Australia 2008
The Installation Memorial/ When I was Younger was commissioned by the Blacktown Arts Centre as a 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.
Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba, Australia 2020
The work Once upon a time long ago and far away: shutting down in isolation, video 4’15” was commissioned by the curator Sabrina Roesner for the group online exhibition, Shift + Control + Exit at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Katoomba Australia. Website https://www.shiftcontrolexit.com/
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. Follow the link on the image on the left to find out more.
During most of World War II tuberculosis was treated by isolation, rest, nutrition and clean air. Sanatoriums to provide treatment including isolation had been established in the Blue Mountains for many years and infected soldiers were often treated here. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
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. I completed an undergraduate visual arts degree at that art school in 1986. Three of my 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’.
Campelltown 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
Canberra Contemporary Art Space 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.
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 work Blood on SIlk 1 and 2 were made by Fiona Davies during the exhibition period resulting in the final work shown here.
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Gallery 19, Haymarket, Sydney Australia 1998
A suite of works formed at the junction where something is held and another thing is allowed to pass.
Golden Age Cinema, Surry Hills Sydney Australia 2019
This suite of three short fairy tales 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. Imagine you have popcorn and can’t leave until the end.
This was my first screening of video works within the cinema context. The narrative of the fairy tales with a beginning, middle and end was not so workable in the gallery context where the audience tends to come and go. The cinema context focuses on the idea that there is a beginning and end to the work. ell your story online can make all the difference.
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 comissioned 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.
Macquarie University Art Gallery, Sydney, Australia 2013
‘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, Australia 2015
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.
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.
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
She 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.
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 commissioned by the Gallery Director Joe Eisenberg OAM for the official opening in 2009 of the new exhibition spaces and buildings.
Newcastle Art Gallery, Newcastle, Australia 2018
Three of my works were selected from the collection of the Maitland Regional Art Gallery for the group show Hunter Red: Corpus at the Newcastle Art Gallery.
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
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.
Peacock Gallery and Auburn Arts Studio and Auburn Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia.
The 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.
Physics Room Christchurch NZ 2002
Five objects from the Canterbury Museum were investigated through the museum’s archives.
Plas Bodfa, Wales, UK
Unus Multorum, (One of Many) Plas Bodfa Objects, Wales, UK contained this suite of ten small sculptures titled 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. This work started as a speculation about the implications of human farming for blood plasma, whole blood and body parts. In those situations the individual producer is one of many. They are anonymous.
Riddoch Arts Centre, Mount Gambier, South Australia. 2020
The expert selection panel Simon Biggs, CJ Taylor, Merilyn de Nys, Melentie Pandilovski, Serena Wong and Melissa Horton chose my 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.
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.
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.
The exhibition included historical medical artefacts from the Medical History Museum and the Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology at the University of Melbourne with contemporary artworks by Ollie Cotsaftis and Sarah McArthur (Aus) Basse Stittgen ( NL/DE), Hotham Street Ladies ( Aus/UK/DE), Bea Haines(UK) John O’Shea (IE) Daniel Elborne (Aus) Tobias Klein, Victor Leung and Jane Prophet (CN/USA/UK) Penny Byrne (Aus) Jipil Jung (KR) Izabela Zolcinska (PL/NO) John McGhee (Aus) Jordan Eagles (USA) Bai Yiluo (CN) Cecilia Jonsson (SE/NO) Art Oriente Objet ( Marion Laval-Jeantet & Benoit Mangin) (FR) Nick Thieberger and Rachel Nordlinger (Aus) Judy Watson (Aus) Raphael Lozano-Hemmer (MX/CA)
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.
Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia 2019
The solo exhibition Cast a cold eye on life, on death: The Remake: Medicalised Death in ICU, was shown 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
The exhibition consisted of nine major works installed as a sequence activated by a performative lecture. The works were -Medical Monitor Work, 2017 video 7’23”, Racing Patience ICU 2018, canvas, paint, found objects and printed matter, dimensions variable, Blood on Silk: Last Seen (partial) 2017, reconfigured 2019 metal, paint, vinyl print and found objects, dimensions variable, Blood on Silk: Price Taker Price Maker 2015 reconfigured 2019 Sound, printed materials and found objects, dimensions variable, Blood on Silk: Last Seen (partial) 2017, reconfigured 2019, silk paper, dimensions variable., Blood on Silk: Blood Farming/The Producers, 2018, plastic, metal, paint, ink, projection and found objects, 135 x 78 x 96(h)cm, Blood on Silk: Bleeding Out, 2016, metal, glass, paint, ink, projection and found objects, 135 x 78 x 96(h)cm, Blood on Silk: Buy/Sell, 2017, metal, glass, paint, ink, projection and found objects,135 x 78 x 96(h)cm, Blood on Silk: Magenta No Exit, 2017, canvas, paint wood and satin ribbon, 285 x 285 (h)cm
Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, University of Sydney, 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 my work Racing Patience ICU was installed as part of the group exhibition ‘In Translation’.
Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, University of Sydney, 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.
The State Silk Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2019
The solo site-specific exhibition Woven Architecture in sites 1 and 2 was developed on site and then exhibited at The State Silk Museum in Tbilisi, Georgia initially from July 1st to 29th 2019 then the exhibition was extended until Oct 2019.
Woven Architecture is a site specific weaving in two sites within the State Silk Museum. The weaving is made of ribbon and is made of and on the architecture of the site. In this work, the I responded to the institutional interiors of the State Silk Museum in Tbilisi by the making of a site-specific weaving using satin ribbon in shades of off white and black. The structure of the weaving will be made solid by the architecture and the tension or stability of the weave will be the stability and tension of the architectural elements.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
The State Silk Museum, Tbilisi, Georgia 2014
Blood on Silk: Tbilisi, 2014, installation, silk paper, rice paper found objects, paint, stickers, video and thread, dimensions variable. The State Silk Museum founded by the natural scientist Nikolai Shavrov is one of the oldest among the world’s silk museums. The museum is located in a building, which was specially built for the Caucasian Sericulture Station in 1887 by Polish architect Alexander Shimkevich. The building has a status of a cultural heritage monument at present. The museum displays quite a versatile and multinational exposition. The collection features objects from 63 countries. Unlike other silk museums (mostly displaying only silk collections) the showing offers everything about silk and sericulture: a unique collection of cocoons (5 000 cocoons of different origins and variations); silkworm biology; special containers for silkworms and eggs (approximately 200 containers); a collection of textile artisanally produced in the Caucasus (19th century); a collection of laces produced in Germany (approximately 400 patterns); a collection of natural and chemical dyes with colored threads (dyes from 16 countries); a butterfly collection (314 butterflies of 161 species); a collection connected with a mulberry tree and etc. There is a unique library in the museum, keeping rare books dating back to the 18th-19th centuries, these books about natural sciences are in Russian, English, German, French, Italian, Rumanian, Hungarian, Chinese, Japanese, Persian, Arabian languages. Museum and library furniture made according to sketches of the architect A. Shimkevitch have preserved their authentic image until today.
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.
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.
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.
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.