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Charge It
Recent work by Pamela Kouwenhoven
For some years now Pamela Kouwenhoven has been collecting the
detritus of human struggle and turning these 'bits and pieces'
into artworks. Using these scraps Kouwenhoven compiles evocative
images that speak of lost love (faded and forgotten flowers from
graveyard dumps), hard times (remnant malthoid sheets from the
bottom of rainwater tanks that once sustained rural families)
and depleted energy (car battery cases that once stored electricity).
Each of these quite separate bodies of work, while contemporary
in feel, reflect historical movements in art. The graveyard pieces,
for example, build on a long tradition of installation art while
the malthoid pieces can be seen as Schwitters-like assemblages
(at least in their initial stages). The works in this exhibition
(her most recent) reflect recent tendencies for artists to use
found objects to reflect on the precarious nature of human existence.
Kouwenhoven has described these works as 'formalist' [i]. This
is to understate the contemporary nature of the work. While Kouwenhoven's
work may have formalist qualities it is post-modern [ii] in both
intent and outcome. The narratives contained in these works both
fuse and undo preconceptions about matter and time (supporting
and undermining both the first and second laws of thermodynamics)
Whether deliberate or not, these works take on deconstruction
theory [iii] and put it into a formalist context (the walls of
a gallery).
The result is work that challenges and ultimately rewards the
viewer with new insights and new questions. What is the meaning
behind these works? Why use old car batteries? Why place them
in such arrangements?
Kouwenhoven has always posed these kind of questions, sometimes
to the delight, sometimes to the bafflement of the viewer. In
this latest exhibition the questions just get a little tougher.
And, ultimately, more rewarding.
Recently, while scouring a scrap metal yard looking for material
for her malthoid pieces, Kouwenhoven came across a sight that
had her intrigued. It was, she said, like some strange surreal
movie set littered with the weirdest objects. Amongst all the
litter and cast-off bits of machinery was a railway carriage
full of old battery cases. In their colouring they were, she
commented, like the faded flowers she'd found in grave-yards.
She packed as many of the cases as she could into her van and
brought them to her studio where they sat, untouched, while she
worked out what to do with them. Over time possibilities dawned.
She saw faded landscapes and typically Australian colours: ochre,
yellow, faded white, charcoal, grey
If the colours reflected the Australian landscape, the faded
names on the cases certainly did not. Trojan, Atlas, Vesta, AuroraThese
were ancient names from another part of the world and another
history. Other more modern names like Autolite, X-Press, Dynapak,
spoke of more recent histories and of brash optimism (how the
mighty fall!).
Maybe this is our lot, to be stranded between a mythic past of
Trojan horses and a false future of US Marshalls and X-Press
dynapaks.
Ian Hamilton, June 2006
[i]The Wikipedia website describes formalism as 'a work
entirely determined by its form - the way it is made, its purely
visual aspects and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional
elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than Realism,
context, and content.
[ii] Wikipedia - Postmodernism describes the
conditions which result from the unique features of early 21st
century life: globalization, consumerism, the fragmentation of
authority, and the commoditization of knowledge.
[iii] Wikipedia - Deconstruction theory: discovering, recognizing,
and understanding the underlying - and unspoken and implicit
- assumptions, ideas, and frameworks that form the basis for
thought and belief.
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