Dungog artist Renae Carlson launched her striking solo exhibition, Kyoto Ravine, at the Maitland Regional Art Gallery (MRAG) on Saturday.
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The exhibition, which runs for two months as part of MRAG’s spring program, was commissioned by MRAG’s former director, Joe Eisenberg, after he spotted some of her work a couple of years ago at the Dungog Arts Society workshop.
Ms Carlson then focused on exploring Zen ideas about life and art, even spending time – while grieving - in Kyoto, Japan’s beautiful old imperial capital which the US deliberately left untouched in the WWII bombing raids.
“I went right after my father-in-law and my pet of thirteen years died within a couple days of each other,” said Ms Carlson, who lived and studied art in Kyoto in her teens and early 20s.
“I wasn’t sure at first if I should go but it turned out to be perfect; I was so raw and open to the way that Zen, and Japanese culture in general, don’t cling to things and try to make everything new and perfect, but instead see the beauty in the changing seasons and phases of life and death,” she said.
Kyoto Ravine is the 17-piece set of collages that came out of this journey into the moods and moments she found amidst the city’s soot-layered temples, its meditative gardens, its love of the handcrafted, and its marking of the seasons.
Combining sketching with materials including wire, bamboo, textiles, and burnt and marked paper, the intricate world of Ms Carlson’s creations is one in which beauty is not a spectacle but rather something sensed in elusive, fading moments.
While not depicting the sights of Kyoto, Ms Carlson’s works resonate with these aesthetics. In her off-centre, unsettling creations, she invites the viewer into an awareness of wabi sabi, the quiet beauty of austerity, imperfection. She explores mono no aware, the melancholy grace of impermanence, and yūgen, an appreciation of darkness, unknowing, and that which eludes inspection.
Ms Carlson will be holding a workshop on the use of Japanese sumi ink (made with ash and bone) at MRAG on November 7, with Kyoto Ravine running until November 22.