Simryn Gill: Gathering at Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
28 August – 17 October 2010

The work of Simryn Gill considers questions of place and history, and how they might intersect with personal and collective experience. Born in Singapore in 1959, Gill lives in Sydney and Port Dickson, Malaysia. Using objects, language and photographs, her work conveys a deep interest in material culture and in the ways that meaning can transform and translate into different contexts. Through the reinterpretation or alteration of existing objects, the photographing of specific locations and the forming of collections, Gill contemplates how ideas and meanings are communicated between people, objects and sites.

Simryn Gill: Gathering explores these ideas through a selection of works from the past five years. The exhibition includes key photographic series such as May 2006Run, and My own private Angkor, the book-based installation Paper boats, as well as Garland, a work made from objects collected from beaches in Malaysia and Singapore over almost a decade. Also featured are the two sculptural works Throwback, comprised of truck engine parts formed from various organic materials, and Untitled (interiors), bronze sculptures cast from drought cracks in western New South Wales.

The exhibition also aims to reveal Gill’s interest in methods of display, and in the different ways in which people might experience art works. It contains a selection of books, sketches, collections and experimental pieces from the early 1990s to the present, some produced for exhibitions and others never intended as art. Together, they offer an insight into Simryn Gill’s artistic processes and her interest in art-making as an active engagement with the world.

Queensland Art Gallery, GOMA