Double Exhibition: Jenna Lee + Courtney Coombs

Please join the opening of two exhibitions by Jenna Lee and Courtney Coombs:

Another type of distance (between object, body and place) | Jenna Lee

Jenna Lee is a Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri woman. She identifies as a queer, mixed race, Asian, Aboriginal woman, with her art practice strongly influenced by these overlapping identities. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Communication Design from Queensland College of Art and a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from the University of Queensland. She is a graphic designer and visual artist gaining critical acclaim from the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards 2018, Blacktown Art Prize 2018, the inaugural Blak Curatorial Exchange and Australia Council’s The Dreaming Award 2019.

As well as producing new work, the exhibition will be an opportunity for Lee to further explore the works ‘Navigating Distances’ 2019 and ‘Fauna Flesh and Feeling’ 2018, and extend ideas seen in Lee’s ‘Invasive Native’ 2019 from Blaklash’s public art exhibition Shared Connections (2019). ‘Navigating Distances’ is a found-object work that parallels her relocation to the United Kingdom with the journey of ancestral objects to the UK in the days of English “discovery” missions. Atop an ochre-stained map, time and distance are measured by bones and pigment stored in glass bottles. ‘Fauna Flesh and Feeling’ is a work that responds in text and symbolic objects, in the artist’s words, to overcoming “self-doubt, self identification and imposter syndrome” regarding the artist’s Larrakia and mixed racial identity. ‘Invasive Native’ uses text and image as an ode to the Eucalpyptus trees of London’s Kew Botanical Gardens that thrive in a cold and foreign landscape.

Sometimes it’s the little things | Courtney Coombs

In ‘Sometimes it’s the little things’ Courtney Coombs continues to explore the power of seemingly fleeting moments.

Courtney Coombs makes art, writes, facilitates and collaborates to try to make sense of the world and their place in it. They are fascinated by the potential for, and the power of, connection and disconnection. Courtney adopts an array of materials and approaches, presenting subjective, vulnerable, and earnest moments. These often include found objects and metaphor to prompt different ways of seeing, understanding and being. Responding to the cis-heteronormative, patriarchal, and neoliberal structures of both the art world and society more broadly with gestures and propositions, they hope to disrupt dominant narratives by prompting conversation, reflection, and a celebration of difference.

Courtney was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy (practice-based research) from QUT in 2015. They have exhibited throughout Australia as well as internationally in solo and group exhibitions. Recent solo exhibitions include: Drifting, Casa Lu, Mexico City (2018); Building Bridges, Wreckers Artspace, Brisbane (2018); Looking Out, Metro Arts, Brisbane (2016); Urban Strolling, Cut Thumb ARI, Brisbane (2016); It’s Complicated, Boxcopy Contemporary Art Space, Brisbane (2014); In Pursuit of Magic, Bus Projects, Melbourne (2014); Wish you were here, Rojitohito, Tokyo (2012); The sum of all things? QUT Art Museum, Brisbane (2012); and I fucking love you, Metro Arts, Brisbane (2011). Courtney has received a number of awards and has engaged in a range of national and international residency programs, including the Australia Council for the Arts Helsinki International Artist Programme residency (commencing June 2020). Their work is held in public and private collections.

Image credit:

Jenna Lee, Navigating Distances, 2019, Larrakia ochre on paper, synthetic polymer paint, glass pigment jars,
assorted natural found objects from Larrakia country (ochre, shells, coral, sea glass, sand dollar).

Courtney Coombs, Sometimes it’s the little things, 2019, Digital image.