(maelstrom)

Firstdraft Gallery, Woolloomooloo, NSW | 6 December 2024 - 19 January 2025

(maelstrom) is a joint exhibition between Nicholas Hanisch and Nicole Clift of small oil paintings and woven tapestries shown at Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney. These works are small in scale, with a particular focus on density as a visual conduit for chaotic forces. Density of pigment, across both oil paint and thread, as well as substrate, as 3 of the paintings are on bronze tablets. The works respond to concepts and quirks of theoretical physics, brought to life for the artists by celebrated writer Carlo Rovelli, and the mesmerising footage of airborne lava eruptions captured in the documentary Fire of Love.

My series of tapestries in cotton, wool and silk are my imagined visualisations of magnetic fields, entropic force, particle collisions and Faraday lines through the lens of Abstraction - Sophie Tauber-Arp, Hilma af Klint, Sean Scully + Virginia Jaramillo were part of my research among others.

Photos: Installation views - Jessica Maurer. Artwork photography- Rosina Possingham