DROP THE DUST

Margaret Worth and Pamela Kouwenhoven at Flinders University City Gallery, 3 July - 29 August 2010
An exhibition of recent work presented for SALA 2010

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools_
The way to dusty death

Shakespeare, Macbeth, V, v, 19

Drop the Dust comprises two- and three-dimensional artworks by established South Australian artists Pamela Kouwenhoven and Margaret Worth. The jointly conceived curatorial theme focuses on the pervasiveness of dust in our lives, whether it takes the form of infinitely small or imperceptible cosmic particles, or huge, frighteningly visible dust storms. In the context of this exhibition 'dust' is conceptualised as a physical presence in the universe -- from the cosmos to the kitchen sink, as it were -- but also as a philosophical and metaphorical construct. Drop the Dust is also a meditation on mortality.

This original and ingenious exhibition examines dust in terms of its (at times intangible) materiality, and as a concept that has, for eons, fascinated theologians and philosophers, and more recently, astrophysicists and other scientific and medical researchers. The idea of dust permeates religious texts, from the Qur'an ("Man is made from the dust of the earth"), to Buddhism ("His success may be great, but be it ever so great the wheel of fortune may turn again and bring him down into the dust") to the Christian Bible ("For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return").

Dust is a potent metaphor, reminding us of our impending mortality and eventual destiny: reduction to particles of dust. Dust also acts as a powerful memento mori, a trope for human impermanence, cautioning us against excessive materialism and acting as a metaphorical injunction against unbridled human desire for worldly success.

Included in this engaging exhibition are Pamela Kouwenhoven's large-scale abstracted malthoid works. Malthoid is a membranous substance used to line Australian water tanks. Kouwenhoven is an avid collector and re-assembler of discarded remnants, that she transforms, bower-bird-like, into captivating artworks. More often than not clumps of hair, fluff, fur, feathers, grit and dust cling to these derelict malthoid fragments. Each crater-like malthoid surface presents a kind of archaeological record, bearing witness to events and weather patterns that have occurred over an extended period of time.

Central to this exhibit is an abandoned dust-, grit- and rust-ingrained corrugated iron water tank that Kouwenhoven has installed in the gallery space. Kouwenhoven and Worth have also created a splendid collaborative tree fashioned from steel and encircled by shards of shattered, toughened laminated glass.

Margaret Worth's works in Drop the Dust evince a similarly beguiling, left-of-field quality. Worth's 'dust domes', in principle not unlike larger-scale versions of the glass- or plastic-encased snow domes that were popular as souvenirs and collectors' items from the late-19th century, are truly original. Inside these six transparent bell jars, Worth has placed a range of small-scale architectural models of atypical domestic residences. A Nissan hut, a model of a futuristic home, and a predominantly flat-roofed house with a modernist, flip-up roof design of the kind favored by migrant architects and their clients in postwar Australia (especially as holiday houses) are included among these diminutive, white powder-coated residences. Inside the glass casing enclosing these architectural specimens Worth has placed finely textured house dust -- comprising fluff, hairs, sand and grime that she and Kouwenhoven gathered for their project. Known in the slang of yesteryear 'beggar's velvet', or even 'slut's wool', these randomly structured, strangely beautiful house dust conglomerations contrast fascinatingly with the formal, domestic microstructures.

Worth has also constructed a large screen comprising six standard-sized, conjoined doors, coated with a dusty, granular surface and diverse flotsam and jetsam. The installation Bottle Bush has been created from painted steel, acacia wood and compressed plastic fizzy drink bottles containing fine particles of red sand and dust collected from the Aboriginal settlement of Amata in South Australia, where there is no shortage of red dust. Finally, in her floor installation, 'Ancient Accumulations under Pressure', Worth has hand-sculpted compressed white rag paper into structures suggestive of the ancient geological landforms of the Australian desert. By positioning these forms on a bed of red sand intermixed with ground down bones, the artist creates an evocative contrast between different textures of dust and decay.

Pulvis et umbra sumus: We are dust and shadow, wrote Horace. It is doubtful whether Drop the Dust could have been conceived or realized by less experienced, more youthful artists. Underpinning Worth and Kouwenhoven's marvellous exhibition is an acute awareness of mortality.

Christine Nicholls

July 2010