Ptolemy Barlow-Hunt
Knox Grammar School
DISPLACED
Documented Forms
Resin, clothes, shoes, rust paint
My body of work investigates ideas and feelings that we all understand: anxiety about life, fear of rejection, unexplainable sadness. I represent the figures in my work hiding their faces as they navigate life in this complex postmodern world. In placing these figures into both natural and manufactured environments I communicate our isolation as individuals and the escalating prevalence of mental health issues in our society. Rust paint applied to the figures conveys the disintegration and decay of people’s mental health. Through my work, I encourage the audience to reflect on their mental health and the mental health of others.
My artmaking practice has been influenced by the study and interpretation of the following artists: Manfred Kielnhofer, Marcus Tse [ARTEXPRESS 2023], Xanthea Vazey [ARTEXPRESS 2021], Georgia Olivia Green [ARTEXPRESS 2018].
Marker's Commentary
This body of work weaves together sculpture, photography, and light to explore the quiet tension of isolation and anonymity through the recurring image of a hooded youth or child. Three unidentified sculptural forms, which are childlike in scale, withdrawn and faceless, anchor this installation. Their presence lingers beyond the physical, reappearing as etched silhouettes and shadowy figures within photographs and engraved acrylic panels. The photographic documentation of the forms shifts between urban edges and coastal stillness, captured at various times of day, creating a dreamlike space where the figure seems both present and vanishing.
Lightboxes illuminate moody, cinematic scenes steeped in darkness and ambiguity. One bears a stark graffiti tag, suggesting a fleeting act of presence in a city. The photographic language echoes the atmospheric low-key depth of Bill Henson, while the sculptures’ surfaces and patina suggest the sensitivity of Alex Seton. This work becomes a meditation on the fragility of the human psyche. Depression is not named, but felt emotionally, held in the slouched shoulders of a sculpture, in the long shadows cast by a fading sun, in the in-between spaces where figures seem to dissolve.