CAVES is pleased to present Memento, a new exhibition of work by Naarm (Melbourne) based artist Maddison Kitching.
During a period living in Mexico City, Kitching became interested in ‘Australian’ trees that live beyond Australia — particularly Eucalyptus globulus, a species endemic to southern Australia that thrives in Mexico City, where it is considered one of the country’s most destructive invasive species. In Australia, the same tree is a deeply rooted cultural symbol. The contradiction embedded in this single species — carrying opposite meanings depending on where it takes root — became the starting point for Memento, and its mirror in Australia’s own relationship to the prickly pear cactus.
Known as nopal in Mexico, the prickly pear was introduced to Australia on the first European ships as part of an effort to establish a cochineal industry, insects harvested to produce a vivid red pigment, to rival the Spanish and Mexican trade. It spread uncontrollably, transforming the Australian landscape. In Mexico, the nopal occupies a central place in the cultural imagination — appearing on the national flag as the sacred site where the Aztecs established their capital, and as a ubiquitous ingredient in Mexican cuisine. In Australia, the same plant has become an emblem of ecological destruction. Transplanted across cultural and geographical contexts, both species are radically reimagined, acquiring new identities that bear little resemblance to their origins.
Working in Mexico City, Kitching collected eucalyptus leaves to make handmade paper, and gathered cochineal insects to extract their pigment by hand. Holding in his hands the raw materials of two nations’ entangled histories, these gathered substances form the large-scale paper work at the centre of the exhibition, presented alongside two oil paintings on linen and eight drawings.
Across all eleven works, a monumental motif recurs — part headstone, part architectural structure, built from familiar forms: crosses, podiums and geometric shapes. Into these structures, natural elements take root and grow — coral, plants, animals, human figures — pushing up through the stone as though the monument is simultaneously a marker of loss and a site of new life.
Memento reflects on the network of meanings between Mexican and Australian species, where the plague of one nation becomes the emblem of another.
Maddison Kitching is a Naarm (Melbourne) based artist.
Exhibition text by Miriam McGarry.