PHANTOM PARADISE

Saint Cloche presents
PHANTOM PARADISE – A Tropical Abyss
A Group Show – Curated by Kitty Wong

Lilli Waters – Photography
Aedan Harris – Ceramics
Amy Wright – Painting
Pascale Boulle – Painting

Peering through the rainforest canopy, foreign noises, sights and smells overwhelm the senses. Enter a lush, seductive place teeming with life, colour and vibrancy. Welcome to Paradise.

Paradise is the culmination of the search for a place or condition of happiness and contentment. This exhibition explores the quest for the ideal but celebrates myth, illusion and the ephemeral nature of our being. The allure of the phantom paradise resides in way that it exists as a space entirely constructed from an individuals own projected desires and ideals.

This journey into a phantom paradise can be traced through the flight of a butterfly. Through it’s metamorphic phases, the butterfly is representative of transformation and an embodiment of the concepts of fragility and transience. It’s beauty resides in it’s vibrant colour which is the result of iridescence, a scientific phenomenon whereby certain surfaces appear to change colour as the angle of view shifts. A magical moment of illusion, witnessed in paradise.

As we navigate this paradise, we are seduced by the prospect of what lies in the darkness. Venture into the tropical abyss and what awaits is dark, depthless and delusive. An abyss is an unchartered zone offering an endless scope of possibilities. Amidst this darkness we seek to pursue fleeting notions and illusions of beauty and the ideal which can be summarised as a search for a Phantom Paradise.

Lilli Waters

Aedan Harris

Amy Wright

Pascale Boulle

The mesmerising ecology of the rainforest has inspired the work of the artists in our next group show, employing a palette drawn from the forest floor, fauna and flora. Organic ceramic forms by Aedan Harris evoke seed-bearing plants and knotted vines. While the fecundity of the forest floor and the fragility of existence are captured by the evocative photography of Lilli Waters and lavish brush strokes of Amy Wright and Pascale Boulle.

‘When I go into the glass houses and I see strange plants of exotic lands, it seems to me that I enter into a dream’

– Henri Rousseau, 1844-1910

YOU ARE INVITED

OPENING NIGHT WITH THE ARTISTS

Thursday 2nd June 6pm – 8pm

CATALOGUE

Click to view Catalogue (PDF 911kb)