Whitelight: Lisa Roet
Australian artist Lisa Roet presents a new body of work completed especially for her third solo exhibition at Gow Langsford Gallery. These works are based on her visit to the snow monkeys in the hot springs of Japan in 2016. Commenting on her travels, Roet explains: “I was left with a profound experience observing the elements of steam, snow and water enveloping the stillness of the monkeys, enraptured by the heat of the water, steam, and the calming minerals. Watching these individual primates and capturing them in through photography, and then sculpture, I was able to associate their likeness with some of the important iconic 3-dimensional images in history. The isolation of Degas' Bathing Lady, the distant rapture of the Madonna in Michelangelo’s Pieta, and the collective cooperation of workers in the paintings of Jean-Francois Millet are images which come to mind.”
The sculptures cast in bronze with the hands plated in 24 karat gold are both of the earth and ethereal. Alongside these life-like sculptures Roet’s photographic series Spirited Away transcends into another world where white light is paramount and alluring. Roet comments: “Having spent many hours watching and rewatching the films of Japanese animator/director Hayao Miyazaki, such as Spirited Away, the feelings generated by these films, the essence of the forbidden, the foreboding, and the enlightened are something I found through these photographs taken at The Hot Springs of Yamanochi. I have aspired to create a state of the Liminal in all these works; a place which is in-between. In-between doing, in-between thoughts, in-between states of being. The Liminal is the tying together of thought and experience where one sense of identity dissolves bringing about a sense of disorientation and eventually new perspectives.”
Lisa Roet’s continuing exploration into primates, their behaviours, and their relationship to the human race has attracted global attention, with many significant awards won and exhibitions throughout Australasia and the world. Most recently in October 2016, to coincide with the Year of the Monkey, Beijing Design Week, and China’s Golden Week, Roet held a solo exhibition at The Opposite House Hotel, Beijing where a 10 metre tall inflatable ‘Golden Monkey’ was installed on the side of the building.
