mā-tər ma-tər

MOTHER MATTER at Silo 6, Auckland, August 2022

mothermother Iteration 18: MELANIE ARNOLD INGA FILLARY NATALIE TOZER ROBYN WALTON

“Matter matters. And I think it’s really clear in Eva’s work that the material manifestation of the form comes out of an intense investigation of the matter.” - Richard Serra, Interview for Eva Hesse.

In May 1970 Eva Hesse’s Contingent appeared on the cover of Artforum magazine. Sadly it had been the final large work created before her untimely death at the age of 34 that same month. Although the cover propelled her work into the realm of public conversation, the message Hesse delivered was more akin to private, personal experiences which exist outside speech. The suspended, membraneous qualities of Contingent carry bodily association without being of the body. In a primal departure from tradition, the skeins of latex and fibreglass harnessed the expressive power of raw material - matter brought down to the level of sub-text.

Hesse’s goal was to stay true to the inherent qualities of the materials, to avoid over-manipulating them thereby exposing these unnoticed qualities; making the unseen seen. The intensely physical, uncontrolled nature of her work launched a shift in creative processes which echoed across the art world, she had employed the power of untrammelled matter to experience the self. Hesse’s legacy prevails; despite four distinct approaches, Walton, Tozer, Fillary and Arnold are aware that we owe a debt of gratitude to our foremother Hesse, because for each disparate practice, at the heart of the matter, lies matter.

Each practice seems to me to trash traditional, decorous anthropocentric philosophies of material, each artist’s inquiries pointing to matter’s existence and ‘life’ beyond human utility and meaning. The halo effect of Hesse’s concepts have radiated beyond that of individual experience; for these artists matter points to the environmental burden of consumerism, to the overarching experience of humanity as a whole, or to that which lies beyond the limits of human perception. Like Hesse, Walton, Tozer, Fillary and Arnold employ varying degrees of interference to expose the dark vitality of their matter. This may sound anomalous given the orchestration required by each practitioner in the creation of an artwork - artists spend our time investing objects with meaning. But matter can have agency and reality beyond the sensibility of a human subject.

…

Through the reality and agency of matter and the strength of academic thought underpinning each practice, the four artists embrace the consequences of life and non-life, capitalist strategies, function and industry. Like Hesse, the practices are linked by an affinity for the tactile, the tangible, physical qualities of a material reality… The medium is the message.

Inga Fillary, 2022

Images Sam Hartnett & Robyn Walton