Pull of the Moon showcases works by Brisbane based artists Elisa Carmichael and Ellie Anderson. Thematic connections with the natural world are explored by both artists in individual and collaborative art works. Both Elisa and Ellie explore the moon’s effect on tides, marine life, and the earth through their own artistic processes. The artists’ backgrounds, inspirations and application of chosen mediums present contrasts and unique representations of the same subject matter.
Ellie’s individual body of work explores the relationship between lunar rhythms, lunar energy and their effect on aquatic life. Her body of work includes a series of large canvases, ink drawings and silkscreen prints on fabric and wood. Energy and the moon’s magnetic force act as visual poetics for the undeniable physics of Earth’s gravitational pull. This phenomena whilst global, is represented on a local scale, inspired by the artist’s recent travels to Mexico. This is evident through obvious inspiration taken from the textiles and artisan aesthetics of the pacific coast state of Oaxaca.
Whilst Ellie’s work shows us what we know to be true. Elisa’s body of work narrates the story of a moon that reveals what is hidden to us when it pulls the tide from the shore and what the tide brings to us when the moon sends it high. The artist inherently knows the moon through its connection with the ocean and the earth. This connection is represented in a series of works developed through the use of painting, drawing, weaving, sculpture and marine debris from the Quandamooka waters.
This exhibition is as much an exploration for the artists and their connection to their processes, as it is an exploration of the nature of things: the moon, tide, gravity, patterns and cycles. The macro and the micro are polarised by the scale of the ideas in this exhibition and the attention to detail of each artwork. It is this polarising effect that allows both artists’ works to compliment and ground each other and present a constant in ways we have not yet seen.
