TIME MACHINE
2023
Daine Singer Gallery
Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler’s Time Machine presents a recent series of paintings accompanied by a suspended sculptural installation. Inspired by patterns and textures found in the world around them, they create works reminiscent of the scarred stone surfaces of a lichen covered landscape, or a star covered night sky. These works contemplate the visual cues of temporal environmental transformation found in both the terrestrial and cosmic worlds.
The duo’s intuitive approach to mark making and form is characterised through abstraction, distortion and repetition. In a process of endurance, Bae and Lawler create a record of time and evolution through the layering, masking and compilation of materials.
For Time Machine Bae and Lawler draw on the fascinating life of lichen, its unique symbiotic relationship with our environment, and its role as a bio-indicator. Their works emphasise repetition and transformation, combining charcoal, ash, synthetic polymers to create highly textured, patterned surfaces. Bae and Lawler draw on references from the microcosmic patterns of the natural world, to create works that take on a macrocosmic state.
Photography: Tim Gresham
REGENERATOR
(site specific works)
2021
The National, Art Gallery of New South Wales
List of Works
Crossing 02
Giclée, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching Rag 310gsm
30 x 40 inch
West Entrance 02
Giclée, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching Rag 310gsm
30 x 40 inch
South Entrance 01
Giclée, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching Rag 310gsm
30 x 40 inch
Crossing 01
Giclée, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching Rag 310gsm
30 x 40 inch
South Entrance 02
Giclée, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching Rag 310gsm
30 x 40 inch
Date: 26 March 2021 - 5 September 2021
Location: Art Gallery of New South Wales
Curator/s: Erin Vink and Matt Cox
Artist text: Hannah Hutchison
Crossing 02
Giclée, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching Rag 310gsm
30 x 40 inch
West Entrance 02
Giclée, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching Rag 310gsm
30 x 40 inch
South Entrance 01
Giclée, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching Rag 310gsm
30 x 40 inch
Crossing 01
Giclée, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching Rag 310gsm
30 x 40 inch
South Entrance 02
Giclée, archival pigment print on Canson Edition Etching Rag 310gsm
30 x 40 inch
Date: 26 March 2021 - 5 September 2021
Location: Art Gallery of New South Wales
Curator/s: Erin Vink and Matt Cox
Artist text: Hannah Hutchison
Regenerator
2021
The National: New Australian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales
Regenerator (2021) is conceived as a cosmic filter for the city, harnessing the properties of charcoal to detoxify, energise, repair and revive the space around it.
Date: 26 March 2021 - 5 September 2021
Location: Art Gallery of New South Wales
Curator/s: Erin Vink and Matt Cox
Collaborators
Sound: Lee Hahn
EN ROUTE
2019 - 2020
Heide Museum of Modern Art
Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler are known for their experiential installations that navigate instinctive and symbiotic connections between people and nature.
For En Route the artists have created site-specific immersive artworks that respond spatially and temporally to the modernist building, Heide II. Using botanical material and a language of texture and reduction, they deconstruct familiar forms and compose new landscapes to be considered and explored. Bae and Lawler present the natural world as active and central in an era of polarisation, inequality, inaction and apathy.
The exhibition combines installation, sculpture, two-dimensional artworks, and photographs documenting ephemeral interventions made by the artists over several months in the surrounds of Heide and beyond.
Date: 9 November 2019 - 2 February 2020
Location: Heide Modern
Curator: Lesley Harding
Collaborators
Sound: Martin Kay
Photography: Sean Fennessey
Resonance
2020
Greenworld, Bayside Gallery
Resonance was presented as part of Greenworld at Bayside Gallery, curated by Joanna Bosse. The exhibition reflects on the power of nature to offer relief, sustenance and inspiration during these times of intense interiority.
Date: 15 July 2020 - 13 December 2020
Location: Bayside Gallery
Curator/s: Joanna Bosse
Image credits:
Other works also photographed are from Betty Muffler and Nicole Foreshew