SHOWROOM
Hugh Marchant & Ben Norris
Exhibition Plan for 2012 at MOP
Drawing by Julian Dolk

GALLERY 1

SHOWROOM
Ben Norris and Hugh Marchant

… The greatest secret of architecture, is that it collects different things in the world, different materials, and combines them to create a space like this. (1.)

These first time collaborators come together to make Showroom; a survey of the rustic object, colonial ruin and the secret garden. In Showroom video, sculpture, photography and performance are organised in order to explore the concept and constructs of space.

The walls will be a warm earthy colour. There will be a gutter of white pebbles running along the three walls of the space. The gutter will be sustained by an extension of the skirting board. The skirting board will be white. Under the pebbles in the gutter will be lined with a thick black plastic. The gutter down the left and right walls will run inside the ceiling lighting track, while along the back wall the gutter will run inline with the track. Centered in the void left by this ‘U’ shaped gutter will be a bench. (2.)

The works in Showroom express a belief that artifacts that are the product of necessity have inherent social value. The focus on handmade forms is a gesture intended to shed light on humanity’s cultural evolution. Parallel to this is an interest in re-imaging past memories in the form of video.

Norris and Marchant’s practices stem from the expanded field of painting and time based art.

1. Peter Zumthor, Atmospheres, Birkhauser, Basel, 2010, 23.
2. Email from the artists, January 2012.

MOP Projects is assisted by the NSW Government through Arts NSW

Image: Lillian O'Neil, Love bomb, 2011, Collage, 260cm x 175cm. Found images on wood.

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GALLERY 2

LOVE MACHINE
Lillian O'Neil

From a bottomless collection of second hand books Lillian O'Neil has created epic collages which examine various manifestations of falling in love. In these collages popular science and popular film go head-to-head in an ambitious attempt to explain the nature of human mating rituals and the tragic comedy of romance.

Lillian O'Neil is one third of the Melbourne based art group Safari Team who's practice spans video, installation, performance and drawing. Recently she took a holiday from collaborating and spent a year in Sydney making enormous collages about the various manifestations of tragic-comedy when falling in love. O'Neil graduated from Monash University in 2008 and is currently undertaking further study at Sydney College of Art. In 2009 and 2010 she was a member of the West Space Program Committee. She has exhibited in Italy and Canada and throughout Australia in both solo and group exhibitions and residencies.