GROUP EXHIBITION: Installation, photography, artist book, mixed media |

February 4 – March 9, 2011 | Anna Pappas Gallery Melbourne

Artists: Sarah Berners, Paolo Consorti, Brad Haylock, Andy Hutson, Deborah Kelly, Christopher Köller, Bonnie Lane, Simon MacEwan, The Sisters Hayes, Natascha Stellmach, Michael Wegerer

In the work of Natascha Stellmach the world of childhood does not seem half so sweet. The context of her Untitled installation is migration. Is Paradise a place, asks the artist, and how does this relate to notions of “home”? Or is Paradise inside of us, with the child at play? To illustrate the question the artist has reworked a post-Federation children’s book, cutting into it and including snippets of free-associative writing. Handwritten wall texts accompany it and other more hidden tracts are found on closer inspection. With references also to Germany and its folklore Stellmach’s world is plural and layered. Paradise in such a context could never be a singular place. However, as the artist suggests, play is something to be found within. Damian Smith