Athene Currie’s most recent video work RED (2017) screened at The Queensland College of Art’s (QCA) White Studio, February 2018. Currie’s move toward video installation developed in her final years as honours student in photography at QCA (2000). Currently a PhD candidate at Griffith University, Currie has developed a broad portfolio of exceptional still and moving images. Most recent work RED (2017) filmed in India and the UK addresses her own and others experience of menopause.
“These bodies of work have gravitated back and forth between several purposes through performance: the transformational processes at menopause through ritual and rites of passage, the recognition of masque, and acknowledgement of the true self”.
The masque of femininity is deployed in Meconaissance – New Rites of Passage (2016), POP Gallery, Brisbane. Here performance video dominates. Currie wraps and unwraps herself in personal rituals in an attempt to remove unwanted identities to find the true self without masque. In this exhibition live performance featured, drawing on Currie’s experience as actor and performance poet while living in New Zealand.
Athene Currie’s skills as a documentary photographer are evident in the series Eastern Face exhibited at the Queensland Centre of Photography (2013). In this series remnants of the British Empire are mirrored in her stunning black and white images of the derelict Sir George Everest House, Uttarakhand, India. Exhibited adjacent is the video of the same title Eastern Face depicting furiously waving prayer flags that emphasise the location of Everest House, a high mountain top with Doon valley one side with the Aglar river the other. See Art Collector.
Artist Website – www.athenecurrie.com
Image: RED (2017) video still
