Exhibition Review - Domestic Bliss, Deakin University Gallery, Burwood 5 June to 19 July 2014

I’m here to tell you that I braved the great outdoors to drive to Burwood last week in what can only be described as violent, umbrella thwarting winds. The purpose of this mad capped journey was to visit the exhibition Domestic Bliss which inhabits the space at Deakin University Art Gallery in a drawing together of institution and personal.

Despite its high ceilings and modern facade, the gallery space invites intimacy by virtue of its modest size and single open room. While there are none of the nooks or crannies of a domestic space to allow for private contemplation, the open plan propensity for a sense of surveillance has been muted by the artful use of a large table to create something of a meeting point within the exhibition.

The table is the first thing visitors encounter, providing a point of welcome and congregation akin to the experience of entering someone’s home. Its presence also imbues a sense of compartmentalisation, a key feature in the exhibition’s demarcation of various domestic spheres. The grouping of objects atop the table form interpersonal relationships, carrying on multiple conversations around the table, much as would a gathering of their makers.

The pure organic forms of Gwynn Hanson Pigott’s vessels sit beside the creative potential of Prue Venables’ bowl, bottle, scoop and spoon. The first possess individual identities that might deign to offer themselves up as vessels for nourishment, the second exhibit a mechanical perfection yet are formed for processes of production and nurture. Katherine Hattam’s Specific Object – White is heavy with family history and a sense of belonging, although its current closed form acts as a potential barrier to outsiders, holding its secrets close. Honour Freeman’s Days Measured reveals traces of lives lived in spite of the ritual cleaning that regularly threatens to erase them.

At the top of the exhibition Michael Doolan and Darren McGinn interrogate our relationship to the house and home. Beyond the table Hannah Bertram’s stenciled ornamental rug constructed via repurposing the detritus of domestic life connotes the lounge. The dust for this in situ work was contributed by Deakin staff. Lucas Grogan’s The Wedding Quilt draws on strong traditions of the domestic arts and politics of the personal, its pointed message made inviting by the welcoming, restful presence of the bed.

Lionel Bawden, Julia Deville and David Ray’s works sit somewhere between ornamental objects and narrative about the underside of domestic spaces, in what Emma Cox (curator) and Georgia Downey’s catalogue essays both highlight as a doubled physical and psychical space. Nadine Christensen’s acrylic doorway is positioned by the exit, so that even as you prepare to leave you find yourself wondering about concealed interior spaces.

The exhibition includes a strong selection of contemporary artists, built around key works from Deakin’s own collection. Domestic Bliss is showing at Deakin University Art Gallery until 12 July 2014 (now extended until 19 July). You can read Emma Cox’s catalogue essay here

Domestic Bliss catalogue cover (detail), featuring Katherine Hattam’s Specific Object – White.

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Domestic Bliss