Undertow
28 Nov 2015 - 14 Feb 2016
Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale
curated by Simon Gregg
There is something decidedly thrilling about being in the dark. A nervous energy, perhaps, associated with hiding under the covers as a child. It heightens the senses to compensate for the loss of vision, and brings other phenomena to our attention—the minutest sound, a breath, a whisper. It is these breaths and whispers that electrify the work of Eloise Calandre. Her images of women in interiors are held in permanent suspense, on a knife’s edge, as we await either further illumination of their obscured surrounds or the fall of absolute darkness. Until then we cannot fully know their situations, whether they be in play or peril, ecstasy or despair. The most likely scenario is an indeterminate middle ground, but the effect of the darkness pressing in from all sides is to exaggerate and amplify the possibilities.