Models and Drawings
(joint show with Wes Placek)
September 2004
Watson Place Gallery, Melbourne.
Artist's Statement
Mt. Purgatory is an imaginary place. Dante set it in the Southern Hemisphere, opposite Jerusalem. Ezra Pound once suggested it was therefore somewhere near Adelaide, surrounded by sheep. The mountain's function is to transform an ethereal concept into an image, to give matter a moral or ethical touch.
The chimney is a place where matter strives to become ethereal, either through radiance or evaporation. In the process, the chimney divides matter in two: one part rises and goes away, the other stays.
The chimneys are part of my examination of what I call The Innisfail Section. My preliminary works in this project were published in Fin De Siecle? and the twenty-first century, Architectures of Melbourne, edited by Leon Van Schaik, (RMIT 1993). When attached to The Innisfail Section, that is, to a building, chimneys are chimneys. But when set out as a series of wooden models, they become alchemical figures made of the same stuff that chimneys consume.
The watercolour profiles belong to my projected translation of the second book of Dante's Divine Comedy. Some furniture from that project was exhibited at Craft Victoria in 1995; and the design for a small outbuilding was published in Thinking Architecture, edited by Andrew Metcalf (RAIA 1995). In these drawings, watercolour is treated as a material, and different applications of the watercolour represent the rituals whereby the causes of sin are purged.
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WHERE THERE'S SMOKE (1993/2004) douglas fir, paper photo by Terence Bogue |
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FIVE CHIMNEYS (1991/2004) 5 models photo by Wes Placek |
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#1 pride
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#2 envy
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#3 wrath
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#4 sloth
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#5 avarice
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#6 gluttony
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#7 lust
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SEVEN PROFILES OF MT PURGATORY (1995-2004)
(#1 pride, #2 envy, #3 wrath, #4 sloth, #5 avarice, #6 gluttony,
#7 lust)
7 drawings
pencil, watercolour and ink on paper
each drawing 36 x 54cms
photos by Robert Colvin
All images on this page are the copyright of Dr Alex Selenitsch.
Disclaimer: This page, its contents and style, are the responsibility of the author and do not represent the views, policies or opinions of The University of Melbourne.
Authorised by: Dr Alex Selenitsch, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
Updated: 14 December 2006