The three artists use walking to build knowledge and embodied experience of the places and sites they investigate in their studios.

The repetitive, meditative rhythm of walking extends in different ways into each artist’s methods, which include drawing, printmaking, photography, glass, textiles and video.

The walks taken by these artists connect to local sites, revisited over a period of time. Rea’s glass works arose from a month-long residency in Cataract Gorge in Tasmania’s north, Aitken’s from her daily walks in and around Hobart, and Mayo’s from a seven-day walk down Merri Creek in Melbourne’s north. 

The local, quotidian nature of walking situates their practices within a place, facilitating each artist to work in ways that stretch beyond a purely representational approach to focus instead more closely on materials, movement and performativity.

Walking Matters: Antonia Aitken, Rebecca Mayo, Kirstie Rea will be on display at the gallery until Sunday, August 5. The exhibition will be officially opened at 6pm on Friday, June 1, while Mayo will present a public tour of her works at 11am on Saturday, June 2.

Sound on Paper presents two projects exploring the apparent dichotomy between visual and audible perception.

Soundscape Instrument (video) is an object that translates painted landscapes into sound.

The scores are detailed gouaches on paper of actual panoramas, which subsequently are perforated following unique features of the landscape.

Once perforated, the painting is played via a music box.

Liveline 1 and 2 were born from the collaboration of Barbara Bartos and Julie Briggs.

Departing from the unique markings made by the scribbly gum moth – an insect that burrows in the bark of eucalyptus trees in south-western Australia – Bartos and Briggs have combined their respective practices to create works that come to life when touched.

Specific points along the painted line, when triggered by touch, sound verses of Briggs’s poems inspired by the insect’s path.