Exhibitions » Exhibition Archive » Hirschfeld Gallery Archive » Slowburner: Lisa Munnelly
Slowburner: Lisa Munnelly
23 August - 12 September 2010 in the Hirschfeld Gallery
Slowburner: Lisa Munnelly was an exhibition of process based work. It included three large-scale monochromatic wall drawings in charcoal, Motherboard, Traverse and Descent (all 2010). The artist produced these in situ; her act of production involves both a time-bound performance, and the making of more permanent marks. The gallery was open to public view during the latter part of the drawing process, which took place over a week.
The exhausted charcoal dust which falls as each work was created was the first trace of its history. This was left on the floor at the foot of one piece, Motherboard, becoming the first part of its documentation, as well as a secondary ‘drawing’ underfoot. Photographic documentation was undertaken throughout the installation of the final work. Each day, black and white images of the artist at work were taken, printed, and pinned up in the gallery space. The artist’s progress was charted though these images, which ultimately became part of the exhibition themselves.
Traverse, a horizontal format work made up of multiple linear marks occupied the long right-hand wall of the gallery. Descent, comprising a single thick horizontal line of charcoal and the vertical fall of dust it leaves, took up the entry wall. Motherboard, a single black rectangle of solid charcoal, was located on the gallery’s back wall. The Fullness of Emptiness (2003) and Sweeping Vistas (2003), two film works documenting a previous performance work, were screened throughout the exhibition.
The artist is interested in providing a ‘temporal and corporeal account of the drawing process’; that is, in investigating the relationship between drawing, time and the body. These works acknowledge that seeing takes time; the title of the exhibition refers not only to the work involved in their conception and realisation, but also to the physical experience of seeing them. Rather than re-present an image or idea, according to the practice of conventional drawing, these works operate in the immediate tense, to present energy, time and space on visual terms.
Public Programmes
Lisa Munnelly and Abby Cunnane in conversation
Saturday 28 August 2010 2pm
String quartet from the New Zealand School of Music perform in Hirschfeld Gallery
Friday 3 September 2010 12:30pm
Media Release
Further Reading
A conversation about drawing with Lisa Munnelly, Abby Cunnane and Simon Morris