6/11/06

Sharon Goodwin

Uplands Gallery
Level 1, 12 Waratah Place Melbourne, May/June 2006
Sharon_2006
When I lived in Japan there was a museum exhibition in Tokyo of mythic animals called Youkai. Like most cultures the Youkai in Japan serve the purpose of telling moral and ethical tales – they embody a way of living, courtesies, cultural niceties. In Japan these symbolic mythic monsters could take a real form – a taxidermed fish and small possum were sewn together – proof to children that these creatures did exist and should be heeded. Youkai, I guess then are like a form of control, an enforcement of a particular hegemony. But on the other hand perhaps they could be reminders, prompters or cue cards; a genius seculi of a certain time. The sleep of reason breeds monsters and Sharon Goodwin’s exhibition at Uplands, Tomorrow is another today, is perhaps, like Goya and the Youkai, a pertinent reminder of our own apathy. The cyclic nature of the title pessimistically eludes perhaps to our present political climate and our own stumblings through life. Change can sometimes move slowly. The nightmare of the small but engulfing installation, a metaphor of our internal conflicts or the rumblings in our bellies coming to the surface. Contrary to what we are lead to believe the personal and the political often intersect. Goodwin’s exhibition, in gothic beauty, succinct and poignant, rendered in graphic starkness of black and white, eeirely illuminated with a hellish red light, points us to an underground where many are one, and one is at war with everyone.
Lisa Radford

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

should have been at Venice Biennale!

10:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

lets not get to exited.

4:50 AM  

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