works

PERTH INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL

^{Image Courtesy Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, UWA.}

^{ANXIOUS SPACES/ LONG KISS GOODBYE/}^{PERTH INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL 2020}

^{'Anxious Spaces' was part of The Long Kiss Goodbye, curated by Gemma Weston, in association with Perth Festival and explores how artists transform familiar materials and symbols into complex meditations on love, loss, attraction and repulsion.}^{A multimedia installation in three iterations , Anxious Spaces incorporated two performances, Pendulum Acts}

^{Part performance and part painting, this installation, on a 13 metre stage presents a world of fleeting appearances and transitory entities. Individual parts are arranged adjacent to, on, over or apart from each other indicating iterative possibilities in creating a whole. ‘Pendulum Acts’ , the agent of change pull away at literal layers in the installation during two solo performances that talk to the social stain of history, referencing known and unknown landscape terrains where memory and loss reveal personal and collective histories .}

^{Sarah Contos (NSW) | Penny Coss (WA) | Iain Dean (WA) | Michele Elliot with Tender Funerals (NSW) | Brent Harris (VIC) | Clare Peake ( WA )}

Essay https:// www.perthfestival.com.au/news/reflections-on-penny-coss-pendulum-acts/

_{Still Image courtesy Lawrence wilson Art gallery, University of Western Australia from Pendulum Acts, 20 Minute solo performance}

59 second Exerpt can be seen here

https://vimeo.com/448010815

^{FROM SOMEPLACE ELSE ARTCOLLECTIVEWA}

_{FROM SOMEPLACE ELSE SOLO EXHIBITION . INSTALLATION IMAGE CREDIT Rob Frith @acornphoto}

^{PENDULUM ACTS / PERFORMANCE /}^{LAWRENCE WILSON ART GALLERY 2020}

^{Excerpt 54 seconds}^{Colour with sound}^{Recorded and Edited Courtesy Lawrence Wilson Gallery}

https://vimeo.com/448010815

ESSAY PENDULUM ACTS

https://www.perthfestival.com.au/news/reflections-on-penny-coss-pendulum-acts/

^{FREMANTLE BIENNALE 2019}

^{TWIST OF THE SEA/ UNDERCURRENTS19/FREMANTLE BIENNALE 2019}

_{Penny Coss, ‘The Twist of the Sea’ · Moores Building · excerpt from Review by Jenny Scott · SeeSaw Magazine Nov 2019}

_{Commissioned for “UNDERCURRENT 19”, the second edition of the Fremantle Biennale, “The Twist of the Sea” is a solo exhibition of works by Perth-based artist Penny Coss. The exhibition borrows its title from a translation of the Portugese “volta do mar”, a historic sailing technique involving the use of trade winds to navigate ships.}_{Through these works, which were all created in Fremantle, Coss seems to suggest linkages between the flow of the currents and our emotional states – a comparison encouraged by the excerpts from Walt Whitman’s poem “As I ebb’d with the ocean of life”, installed onto the outer walls of the gallery.}

_{A bewitching large-scale video projection, Twist of the Sea (2019), follows two ethereal figures who drift on the ocean’s currents in inflatable swim rings. Dreamy underwater shots are mixed with aerial footage of brightly coloured fields of dye gently diffusing through the water around them. Much as historic ships were dependent on permanent wind patterns, these figures follow the movement of the water, which is evocatively accentuated through the swirling clouds of dye.}

_{Is this mindful choice – their act of giving up control, of being driven by the wind? Or are the figures being passively swept along, helpless in the face of the movements of their environment?}

_{In the following gallery, the assemblage Cool Breeze (2019) presents a flock of swim rings suspended in motion. Their top surfaces have each been covered in a thickly painted pastel colour – like the past traces of the waterline have become a tangible marking.}

_{The final gallery houses three suspended screens showing Doldrums , a video of works exploring meditative repetition, the interplay of substances and forces, and the movement of the ocean.}

_{This exhibition fits beautifully upstairs within the historic Moores Building, a quintessentially “Fremantle” venue in a port city so closely linked to the ocean.}

_{Remasterd with Sound . Twist of the Sea (still image) was originally commissioned by The Fremantle Biennale for Undercurrents19. Sound composition was a collaboration with sound artist Ned Beckley from Equate Studio. This new work was part of a funded project awarded in 2020 from The Department of Local Government , Sport and cultural Industries.}