PETA CLANCY and CATHERINE O’DONNELL ‘AMPLIFY’ at Carriageworks

June 30, 2024

Peta Clancy and Catherine O’Donnell have been selected to exhibit large-scale installation work during Sydney Contemporary from 8.09.-11.09.22 through AMPLIFY, curated by Annika Kristensen. Previously known as Installation Contemporary, this is one of the most anticipated sectors of the Fair and provides 16 artists with the opportunity to showcase ambitious work that extends beyond the traditional booth presentation.

Peta Clancy’s highly acclaimed photographic series ‘Undercurrent’ (2018-19) will be projected onto the exterior façade of Carriageworks. Through a collaboration with the Dja Dja Wurrung community during a 12-month residency at the Koorie Heritage Trust, the artist captured re-directed waterways that submerge sites of Indigenous massacres. By slicing and re-photographing photographs of the same location, the seemingly serene and half out-of-focus landscapes mask a dark past of colonial frontier wars. This series has been exhibited as part of ‘The National’ at the Art Gallery of NSW, ‘Capital’ in the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, and ‘The Burning World’ at Bendigo Art Gallery, and will now be re-imagined during Sydney Contemporary 2022.

Catherine O’Donnell will create a site-specific durational drawing directly onto a wall within the Fair. Through her drawings, the artist aims to extract architecture from its surroundings through elevated abstraction and the distillation of spatial composition, deleting extraneous information to emphasise the simplified form. She perceives the suburbs as full of both connection and disconnection, and examines urban living as a site of complexity, memory, and social history.

Read more about AMPLIFY.

Book tickets to Sydney Contemporary here.

Image caption: Peta Clancy, ‘Undercurrent (3)’, 2018-19, Inkjet pigment print, 92 x 130 cm

Image caption: Catherine O’Donnell, ‘Fibro Facade’, 2018, drawing on paper and tape, 256 x 2064 cm.