Heide Gallery: Simryn Gill: The Gathering

Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne, Australia has just held an excursion for the students of Year 10 Photography, Design and Multimedia Art classes. The excursion had covered an introduction and brief tour of the Heide Gallery as well as Monsalvat. Heide is said to be the origins of Australian Contemporary Art where Australian art finally took its own form, setting it apart from English works.

It had been quite a surprise to find the gallery located slightly lower down a slope of a hill. It had required  an approximate time of 30 minutes for the bus to reach our destination. Whilst at Heide Gallery, students had been given the opportunity to take a cooling stroll along the grounds to a Sculpture Garden where a number of unique figures laid. Among many, a green tin statue of a shrunken boy with two long hands extending outwards from his side and 3 cows made of zinc and tin alloy.

Within the gallery itself, students were told not to use Byros. Byros=Pens.
At Heide Gallery, students were introduced to the exhibition of Simryn Gill: The Gathering.
Simryn Gill is a Sydney-based Malaysian Indian Artist who has major exhibitions in both Sydney and Adelaide, where she has been living for 15 years now. She formerly used to stay in Port Dickson, Malaysia undecided between pursuing the occupation of an author or artist. Eventually, she selected the latter; Enjoying and much prefering the expression of creativity through the development and creation physical objects such as sculptures, stamps and photography. Lynne Curtis who had been a guide for one of the two groups of girls' we had today explained the goals of Simryn Gill's work that reflected the impact of migration.

Migration alters the original state of being of an object as the object itself is forced to change in order to adapt themselves into a new environment.

Simryn Gill whos pieces largely relate to textual references. Some of her work has even highlighted political issues in her homeland (Malaysia) from even back in 1979 when Mahathir, Malaysia's 4th and longest serving Prime Minister, had been Vice. Mahathir had apparently mentioned to "shoo" away the boat people that had been approaching the Malaysian straits in the time. From this incident, Simryn Gill had made a very simple and monotone colored piece of 'shoo' in typewriter font printed in tiny rows to shape a perfect square on a blank sheet of paper. Another of her largest pieces was for an exhibition in Germany that demonstrated truck parts made with organic material found around her home back in Port Dickson, where even gears parts are made with leaves. Even with all her pieces, she doesn't neglect her photography. Displayed along with the typewriter and truck pieces is a marvellous display of digital photography of Simryn Gill's 'My Own Angkor Watt'. My Own Angkor Watt reflects great use of film photography and capture of extreme hues. It exhibits colors even from the range of black all the way to white.

Evelyn Wong~Ocean Lover

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