1301PE is pleased to present its first solo exhibition with preeminent Australian-based Malaysian artist Simryn Gill, Fall then will feature ink rubbings and photographs that continue Gill’s interest in impermanence, ecology and movement as well as personal themes such as locality, history and memory.
“I could say these photos over such a long time are like a conversation, a greeting to that sliver of coast, whatever ships and boats may be there, birds, the sun where it sits in the sky, trees (in water or otherwise depending on the tide): a point of view, a way to look, a place to come to standstill. A habit.” – Simryn Gill
In her series of photographs, Repeating Chasms, gazing out at a placid coastline on the Straits of Malacca, Gill communicates both her regular return to the same view from a specific location and the effects of global industry in that place. The photographs act not just as historical documentation or personal recollection but reposition the idea of what photography can be; memory is reshaped and retold in the present, directing photography’s compass towards mythmaking rather than truth-telling. These works are exhibited with Fall then, a large series of one-to-one scale direct impression ink rubbings of flora that grows on vacant land in Malaysia. The plants Gill includes, giant macarangas, rubber trees, lead trees, tapiocas, ferns, Lalang grass, acacias, papayas, hanging vines, have been variously described as native, domestic, introduced, invasive, pioneer, endemic. They envelop the viewer in a contradictory and exuberant wildness. The pairing of these works is a stark reminder of the consequences of voracious and intrusive modernity and the everlasting effects of humanity’s actions upon our environment and ourselves.
Simryn Gill was born in 1959 in Singapore, and lives in Sydney, Australia. She represented Australia in the 55th Venice Biennale (2013). Her work has been included in the Sydney Biennial (2018), Dhaka Art Summit (2018), Documenta 13 (2012) 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011), Sharjah Biennial (2007), and has been the subject of one person exhibitions at the Tate Modern, London; Espace Louis Vuitton, München; the Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC; Lunds Konsthall, Sweden; M KHA, Antwerp; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; and the Gallery of Modern Art, Queensland. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Tate Modern, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
