Stone Curtains (between heaven & earth) 2024

Stone Curtains (heaven and earth) presents two suspended curtains composed of watercolour works on paper. They serve as a metaphorical gateway into exploring the intersections of science, spirituality, and art. Stones as metaphor, represent vessels of knowledge, embodying both macro and micro qualities, evoking the vastness of the universe while also containing the weight of time and history. Eather employs randomness in these arrangements to suggest universal dualities and the tumbling laws of chance and natural phenomena ...These dualities extend beyond the physical realm, reflecting earthly substance and heavenly bodies, and exploring the tensions between...

(Nicholas Tsoutas, curator)

Context:

This series begun as intimate watercolour studies (Belgrade sky 2023 series), consisting of assorted floating (celestial coloured) rocks and stones symbolic of ‘allegorical’ family relationships. The series has been expanded with natural ochre stones (Currency series 2016) into the Stone Curtains installation. Together they form something of a coincidence of opposites, an ‘antipodean union’….

Artwork details:

Two ‘curtains’ consisting of a gridded set of (watercolour) works on paper, taped together (archivally). Each suspended from ceiling to floor, back-to-back , intimatespace in between.

·         Stone Curtain (heaven)

·         Stone Curtain (earth)

·         Each individual work watercolour on  A4 size

·         Each curtain contains 64 works hanging vertical formatted in a 8 x 8 grid.

Number of 64 representing the I Ching (the book of changes)

·         Each curtain measuring: WIDTH @1700mm and LENGTH (drop) @2500mm

Concept:

The first job of the scientist is to not trust the science…

Stones fall as a paper curtain to reveal and question perceptions of materiality… (Conceptually) dissolving the space between science, spirituality and art; between ideas of consciousness and matter… we’re lured into a philosophical landscape.

·         Stone (as metaphor): a vessel for the containment of knowledge; macro/micro qualities: stone as universe;  stone as currency, objects blunted in time.

·         Randomly arranged to suggest universal dualities; the laws of attraction; the presence of magnetic and conflicting forces.

·         Curtains to mirror I Ching number system (64); unveiling the tumbling laws of chance and natural phenomena, symbolic sensory data.

·         Works available for sale as complete curtain; or as minimum groupings of 4.

Michael Eather 2024

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