Eliza Hutchison explores the morally transient idea of sentimentality in a fluid and expansive archive of ‘pinkness’. The images are drawn from the artist’s own archive in combination with re-photographed media images of obscure as well as archetypal representations of ‘pinkness’ in mass culture. Hutchison connects themes of the body, kitsch, war, landscape and combinations there of. The work examines the physiological and psychological experience of ‘pinkness’ in all its hues, luminosity and brightness, as well as its corporal resonances and how this in turn might inform and drive the content.
In the first series of the project; Plaid, Hutchison presents a photographic installation exploring the idea of trauma in the archival image through colour and abstraction.
The artist has rephotographed the bloodied carpet and fabric from the forensic archive of the Tate house crime scene multiple times to achieve a pixellated ‘plaid’ patterning. This series traces the aesthetics of trauma along the indexical axis of photography.
Photos courtesy of by Taryn Ellis.
Eliza Hutchison is born 1965, Johannesberg, South Africa. Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
Education: 1994, Honors Fine Art, Sculpture & Installation, Sydney College of the Arts; 1991-92, B.F.A. Sculpture & Photography, RMIT, Melbourne; 1986-88, B.A. Film & Theatre Studies, UNSW, Sydney.
Solo exhibitions: 2017, Balancing the Bandwagon, Murray White Room, Melbourne; 2016, Family Photos B, Bus Projects, Melbourne; 2015, Family Photos, Murray White Room, Melbourne; Plaid, CAVES, Melbourne; 2013, Hair in the Gate, a biograph, Murray White Room, Melbourne; 2012, Hair in the Gate, a biograph, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne; 2010, Kewpie and the Corn Idol, Murray White Room, Melbourne; 2007, The Ghillie, Murray White Room, Melbourne; 2005, The Ancestors, RMIT Project Space, Melbourne; 2004, The Ancestors, TCB, Melbourne; 2002, The Entertainers, First Floor, Melbourne; 2000, My brain stood on the burning deck, 200 Gertrude Street, Melbourne; Voila!, First Floor Artists and Writers Space, Melbourne; Bohemian Powder Puff, Contemporary Centre for Photography, Melbourne; 1996, Interview with Shade, First Floor Gallery, Melbourne; 1995, The Still Life and the Cleaner, the Story of Porphyria Blank, 200 Gertrude Street,; Melbourne.
Selected group exhibitions: 2019, The National 2019, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; 2016, Spring 1883 The Hotel Windsor, Melbourne; 2015, Cutting edge: 21st-century photography Monash Gallery of Art, Melbourne; Spring 1883 The Establishment Hotel, Sydney; 2014, Spring 1883 The Hotel Windsor, Melbourne; 2013, Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Murray White Room, Sydney Contemporary 13; Murray White Room, Art Basel Hong Kong 2013; We used to talk about love, Balnaves contemporary: photomedia, Art Gallery of New; South Wales, Sydney; 2012, Confounding: Contemporary Photography, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Self-Conscious: Contemporary Portraiture, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; 2011, Under the Willow, Flinders Street Gallery, Sydney; 2010, PREVIEW 10, Murray White Room, Melbourne; GROUP 03, Murray White Room, Melbourne; 2008, GROUP 01, Murray White Room, Melbourne; 2007, Monash University Collection, a selection of recent acquisitions, Monash University; Museum of Art, Melbourne; 2006, Light Sensitive, Contemporary Australian Photography from the Loti Smorgon Fund,; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; 2005, Pitch your Tent, video program, curator Lisa Vasiliou, Monash University Museum of Art,; Melbourne; The Australian Photographic Portrait Prize, AGNSW, Sydney; 2004-06, Indonesian Art Summit, Jakarta; Supernatural Artificial, touring photo-based exhibition, curator Natalie King:; The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan; The Art Centre, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand; 12th Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh, India; Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, Vietnam; Nanyang Academy of Fine Art, Singapore; 2002, New Art, Kaliman Gallery, Sydney; Group Show, First Floor, Melbourne; Happiness 2, curator Charlotte Day, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth; Attention Span, video show, curator Lisa Andrew, Sydney; 2001, New Releases, curator Emil Goh, Gallery 4a, Sydney; Happiness, Australian and New Zealand Photographic Work, curators Zara Stanhope and; Charlotte Day, Adam Gallery, Wellington; Contagion, Australian Media Art @ the Centenary of Federation, New Zealand Film; Archive, Wellington; 1999, Funk De Siècle, curator Murray White, Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; Exhumed 2, curator David Noonan, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra; The Nearest Habitat System, curator Eliza Hutchison, First Floor, Melbourne; 1998, Exhumed, Project Space, curator David Noonan, RMIT, Melbourne; “L’atmosphère”, with Alexander Knox, First Floor, Melbourne; Postal Presents, Stripp Gallery, curator Larissa Horjth, Melbourne; 1997, Wannabe, 200 Gertrude St, curator Charlotte Day, Melbourne; Difficult Territory: A Post Feminist Show, Artspace, curator Kristen Elsby, Sydney; 1996, The Modern Star Series, video installation, curators Eliza Hutchison and David Noonan,; The Next Wave Festival, Melbourne; M.M.M, Lindsay Gallery, curator Jan Nelson Robert, Melbourne; COLLECTIONS; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne; Horsham Regional Art Gallery Collection, Victoria.