Michelle Cawthorn, Songbird
Exhibition catalogue for Michelle Cawthorn's 'Songbird,' on display at Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, 12 Berry Street Nowra, from July 10 - August 28 2021.
Exhibition catalogue for Michelle Cawthorn's 'Songbird,' on display at Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, 12 Berry Street Nowra, from July 10 - August 28 2021.
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<strong>Michelle</strong> <strong>Cawthorn</strong><br />
<strong>Songbird</strong>
Cover image:<br />
Cambewarra 2021<br />
Digital collage, archival ink and acrylic on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Cotton Rag paper<br />
110 x 80 cm<br />
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<strong>Michelle</strong> <strong>Cawthorn</strong><br />
<strong>Songbird</strong><br />
For Sydney-based artist <strong>Michelle</strong> <strong>Cawthorn</strong>, the distinctive ah-ah-aaaah of<br />
the Australian Raven is a strong trigger to childhood memories of family<br />
holidays spent at Lake Conjola on the South Coast of New South Wales. In<br />
her memory, its call is associated with the smell of the lake and the sound of<br />
casuarinas whistling in the early morning breeze. Later when her family<br />
moved from Sydney to Nowra in the 1980s, the Eastern Whipbird would<br />
provide accompaniment on her solitary walks through the family property to<br />
the edge of the Shoalhaven River.<br />
Nowadays her home and studio are situated on the edge of the Royal<br />
National Park in Sydney’s south and her day is punctuated by the chitter and<br />
trill of birdcall. Within her practice, <strong>Cawthorn</strong> engages with memory as an<br />
agent of creativity in artistic practice. For the exhibition <strong>Songbird</strong>, the artist<br />
considers the ways that birdsong can link memory with place through a<br />
series of drawing, collage and video works that offer a visual expression of<br />
her aural experience, both past and present.<br />
Shoalhaven Regional Gallery<br />
10 July - 28 August 2021<br />
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Close to You 2021<br />
Single-channel HD video, sound<br />
4:07 minutes<br />
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A Chorus Line: Douglas 2021<br />
Collage on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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Gypsy 2021<br />
Digital collage, archival ink, Indian ink and acrylic on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Cotton Rag paper<br />
110 x 80 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line: Alice 2021<br />
Collage and acrylic on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line: Elsie 2021<br />
Collage on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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Nowra, Sweet 2021<br />
Digital collage, archival ink and acrylic on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Cotton Rag paper<br />
110 x 80 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line: Stanley 2021<br />
Collage and watercolour on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line: Neville 2021<br />
Collage and acrylic on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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Conjola 2021<br />
Digital collage, archival ink and acrylic on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Cotton Rag paper<br />
110 x 80 cm<br />
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Kimberley 2021<br />
Digital collage, archival ink and acrylic on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Cotton Rag paper<br />
110 x 80 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line: Saxby 2021<br />
Collage on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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<strong>Songbird</strong><br />
Essay by Chloé Wolifson<br />
The works in <strong>Songbird</strong> have come about as a result of<br />
<strong>Michelle</strong> <strong>Cawthorn</strong> reflecting on her childhood experiences<br />
in the Shoalhaven, but they are not a direct transcription of<br />
this time. If they were, plants and fish might feature<br />
prominently, rather than birds, as these were the things<br />
that captivated the young <strong>Cawthorn</strong> when she spent time<br />
holidaying in Lake Conjola as a child, and later when her<br />
family moved to Nowra when <strong>Cawthorn</strong> was 10 years old.<br />
As an adult the artist finds herself living in the neighbouring<br />
suburb to where she entered the world, with her home and<br />
studio backing onto the Royal National Park. Here, birds<br />
provide the incessant soundtrack to life and work, and their<br />
constant calls have led to the realisation that wherever<br />
<strong>Cawthorn</strong> has found herself in life, birdsong has been the<br />
element connecting her to that place. In <strong>Songbird</strong>, the<br />
slowed-down call of the Eastern Whipbird emanates from<br />
the video work Close to You, filtering through the space and<br />
between the other works in the exhibition.<br />
Who are these creatures that appear in <strong>Songbird</strong>? They are<br />
not straightforward representations, but strange hybrids. In<br />
one group of works, the top half of each creature is a digital<br />
collage of an artwork by The Sydney Bird Painter, an artist<br />
thought to have arrived on the First Fleet. These are<br />
combined with markings made by <strong>Cawthorn</strong> in her<br />
signature meditative ink-pen strokes. In another series,<br />
<strong>Cawthorn</strong> has created hand-cut collages taken from images<br />
of The Sydney Bird Painter’s works, mixing and matching<br />
wings into creatures that on first glance have the delicate<br />
beauty of the original works but closer inspection are<br />
revealed to be unnatural amalgamations. In both series,<br />
<strong>Cawthorn</strong>’s reimagined birds are unable to take flight.<br />
Though beautiful and fascinating, their limbs have been<br />
recomposed to keep them caught in these compositioncages,<br />
as objects of memory.<br />
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Identity is made up of many parts. Some parts are smoothly<br />
connected, while others sit uneasily alongside one another.<br />
<strong>Cawthorn</strong>’s works are hybrids, comprised of two very<br />
different impressions: a colonial interpretation of native<br />
fauna in keeping with the visual language of that time, and<br />
a contemporary meditation on memory. They are not two<br />
seamlessly integrated halves, but elements of a complex,<br />
ongoing story of invasion, documentation, categorisation<br />
and settlement. As <strong>Cawthorn</strong> explores in the swirling,<br />
looping work Interloper, a sense of place, home and identity<br />
are often not straightforward. At what point does one start<br />
to feel at home in a holiday house? A new school? A new<br />
colony? And even if one begins to feel comfortable in new<br />
surroundings, how do the locals feel about that?<br />
Memory can be elusive, like a bird. <strong>Cawthorn</strong>’s works<br />
conjure up the fleeting glimpses and hidden rustlings that<br />
are the impressions a bird leaves on a small child exploring<br />
in bushland. Always just out of sight yet ever-present. While<br />
<strong>Songbird</strong> is <strong>Cawthorn</strong>’s meditation on her personal<br />
memories, in a broader way, these works serve as a potent<br />
reminder of the way memory can reside in all the senses,<br />
and emerge in surprising ways, at unexpected times.<br />
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Interloper 2021<br />
Archival ink, Indian ink, collage and acrylic on Hahnemühle paper<br />
108 x 156 cm<br />
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Miranda 2021<br />
Digital collage, archival ink, Indian ink and acrylic on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Cotton Rag paper<br />
110 x 80 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line: Enid 2021<br />
Collage and acrylic on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line: Jack 2021<br />
Collage on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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Grays 2021<br />
Digital collage, archival ink, Indian ink and acrylic on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Cotton Rag paper<br />
110 x 80 cm<br />
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Gymea 2021<br />
Digital collage, archival ink, Indian ink and acrylic on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Cotton Rag paper<br />
110 x 80 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line: The Blues 2021<br />
Collage and watercolour on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line: Irene 2021<br />
Collage and acrylic on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line:: Harry 2021<br />
Collage and acrylic on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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A Chorus Line: May 2021<br />
Collage and acrylic on Hahnemühle paper<br />
39 x 32 cm<br />
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Swallow’s Lament 2021<br />
Single-channel HD video, sounds<br />
5:33 minutes<br />
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Biography<br />
<strong>Michelle</strong> <strong>Cawthorn</strong> (b.1970) is a multidisciplinary artist whose<br />
practice is grounded in drawing and intersects with painting,<br />
sculpture and installation. Her work intertwines autobiography<br />
and fiction and is informed by an autoethnographic approach<br />
to artmaking which engages with memory as an agent of<br />
creativity in studio-based practice.<br />
<strong>Cawthorn</strong> has exhibited in a range of contexts throughout her<br />
career including by selection, by curation, and by invitation.<br />
Her work has been included in group exhibitions since 2003<br />
and in 2012 she held her first solo exhibition. In 2015 she<br />
exhibited Bittersweet at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Arts<br />
Centre as part of the survey exhibition 4 Solos.<br />
Other recent group exhibitions include the Ravenswood<br />
Australian Women’s Art Prize (2021, 2020, 2019, 2017), the<br />
Hazelhurst Art on Paper Award (2017, 2015, 2013), the<br />
Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize (2018), Jamberoo Mountain<br />
Road, Shoalhaven Regional Gallery (2018) and Imagine,<br />
Gippsland Art Gallery (2018).<br />
<strong>Cawthorn</strong> has twice been the winner of the Hazelhurst Art on<br />
Paper, Friends of Hazelhurst Local Artist Award (2017 and<br />
2013) and twice received Highly Commended in the Tim Olsen<br />
Drawing Prize (2018 and 2014), the premier prize for drawing<br />
at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). In 2017 she was<br />
a finalist in the prestigious Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of<br />
New South Wales.<br />
<strong>Cawthorn</strong> has received grants from NAVA and Create NSW and<br />
been the recipient of a Bundanon Trust Artist in Residence<br />
Fellowship. She has also received an Australian Postgraduate<br />
Award and an Australian Government Training Research<br />
Program Scholarship.<br />
She holds a PhD in Fine Art, a Master of Fine Art and a Bachelor<br />
of Fine Arts Hons (Class 1) from UNSW and her work is held in a<br />
number of public collections including ARTBANK, Australia and<br />
Shoalhaven Regional Gallery.<br />
She live and works in Sydney, Australia.<br />
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<strong>Michelle</strong> <strong>Cawthorn</strong><br />
<strong>Songbird</strong><br />
Exhibition dates<br />
10 July - 28 August 2021<br />
Manager Arts and Culture: Bronwyn Coulston<br />
Gallery Officer: Bridget Macleod<br />
Public Programs Officer: Fiona McFadyen<br />
ISBN: 978-0-6483014-7-9<br />
All images Copyright © <strong>Michelle</strong> <strong>Cawthorn</strong><br />
Essay Copyright © Chloé Wolifson<br />
All images and essay reproduced with permission, courtesy of the artist and author.<br />
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced<br />
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,<br />
without the prior permission from the publisher other than that permitted<br />
under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments.<br />
<strong>Michelle</strong> <strong>Cawthorn</strong> is represented by OLSEN Gallery, Sydney<br />
Shoalhaven Regional Gallery<br />
12 Berry Street<br />
Nowra, NSW 2541<br />
T: 02 4429 5444<br />
Tuesday to Friday 10 am – 4 pm<br />
Saturday 10 am – 2 pm<br />
www.shoalhavenregionalgallery.com.au<br />
63 Jersey Rd Woollahra Sydney<br />
T: 02 9327 3922<br />
OLSENGALLERY.COM<br />
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