Kate Ambrogio
SCEGGS Darlinghurst
THE ART MUSEUM AS RITUAL
Painting
Acrylic on wood
My body of work, The Art Museum as Ritual, references critic Carol Duncan's article of the same name, and similarly examines the ritual of observing art in a gallery. My intention was to represent the surreal atmosphere people experience within the architecture of these spaces. Duncan labels this liminality of the gallery as a space between the boundaries of day-to-day existence; detached, timeless and exalted. By uprooting the audience from the precise works at which it gazes, my intention is to amplify instead the beauty and art in this pensive, even vulnerable, ritual of seeing and being seen.
My artmaking practice has been influenced by the study and interpretation of the following: Carol Duncan, 'The Art Museum as Ritual' in Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums; MC Escher; Rachel Whiteread, Drawings exhibition; AGNSW, Naala Badu and Naala Nura.
Marker's Commentary
The Art Museum as Ritual is a compositional virtuosity within a triptych format. The audience is moved around each of the three works and back again through dynamic and geometrically precise leading lines, directing the viewer around the fragmented spaces, like that of the art galleries it is representing. The technical rendering of spaces and forms, while also revealing the support of the work, harks to the sophisticated ideas being referenced from Carol Duncan’s article of the same name. While clearly depicting the architectural and human nature of the gallery, the artwork is more about the experience of visiting a gallery and omits the artworks from the composition, which is very much an informed choice. The sophisticated, intentional pre-planning is on show in this meticulous and highly refined work. This imagery is conceptually mature and technically complex - a wholly interconnected triptych that echoes the surreal spaces of Escher beautifully. As an exemplary body of work, this triptych showcases both hard edge and realistic painting practices that reveal the multi-dimensional practice of the artist and provides insights into the museum as a place of ritual.