November 2021

as above, so below Exhibition
AIRspace Projects, Marrickville

as above, so below, as within, so without

Stevie Fieldsend, Kath Fries, Gianna Hayes, Owen Leong, and Linda Sok

“As above, so below; as within, so without; as the universe, so the soul.” We are miniatures in the eyes of the larger cosmos in which we exist, while simultaneously holding status as giants in the eyes of the atom.

We gaze up, we stare down. The realisation dawns that duality exists in every context. That which is mystic has eternally charmed and terrified humans across our existence. If there is one entity, there is an equal in greater and smaller form. Often referred to in occultist studies, believed to be Hermetic in origin, this is the artist’s practice of alchemical inspiration. Divine in nature, human in action. A spiritual transmogrification that lies within the qualities of the elements and natural world. Transmutation abounds from below the earth to the astral planes, the trust rests purely in the artist’s sleight of hand.

Push and pull.

as above, so below investigates alchemical transformations as a way of exploring personal mythologies, rituals, transience, and speculative ecologies. The artworks in this space exist as a tangled ecosystem, exploring the mutually dependent web of living and non-living materials - above and below the surface. Water, salt, crystals, metals, mycelium, plant matter, and glass. Artists Stevie Fieldsend, Kath Fries, Gianna Hayes, Owen Leong, and Linda Sok employ the aesthetics of nature through evocative and embodied encounters with organic, earthen materiality. These creative alchemists navigate our integral being, and the interconnectedness of all things.

Envisioning an intuitive exploration of the relationship between matter and memory, the exhibition attempts to deepen our understanding of the self, the world and beyond. The metamorphosis of materials from one state to another is an ancient alchemical process, underpinned by the notion that all matter is an interplay of opposing, antagonistic forces. This dualism evokes essential questions around reciprocity, co-existence and the exchange – or correspondence – between two equally disparate polarities. Reflecting this thinking, the exhibition adopts its title from ancient Hermetic principles in which the practice of alchemy is deeply rooted. In this context, ‘as above, so below’ is often posited as whatever action an individual manifests on Earth will be reflected in the spiritual or astral plan. Similarly, that which happens in nature is reflected within the human body – we are analogous with the same material as the universe – psychologically, noetically and physiologically. These structural similarities are often referred to as the macrocosm (the great order or universe as a whole), and the microcosm (the smaller order or the human being). These smaller systems are considered miniature versions of the larger cosmos, and its celestial mechanics and terrestrial events.

Alchemists often attempted to take common, uneven, material things and transform them into something spiritual, divine, and obscure – a practice not dissimilar to the artists in the exhibition. This potential for transmutation of a material into something other than originally intended offers the potential to embed new meaning. The processes of gravity, crystallisation, sedimentation, abrasion and erosion, sometimes operate quite independently from human intervention and the artist’s guiding hand. Within as above, so below it is often the trace or residue of something occurring from a reaction, transference, of living, morphing matter.

Acting as a continued provocation towards the inherent dualism underpinning the exhibition is the observation that the exhibition space engages two rooms – one dark and one light – and has been moulded by the decision-making of two curators. The uncomfortable reality of life and death, sweet and sour, natural and constructed, is reflected through the antipodal dark and light tones of the dual spaces.

Walking through the first gallery, it becomes clear that there is a heaviness that expands through to illumination within the second space. The works have germinated and pollinated across the spaces, where organic materials have sprouted sporadically along the floor and up the gallery walls. They avoid the audience’s touch, propagating out of reach and evading the eye through sky hangs and grounded plinths. The works no longer exist in isolation, but are in taxonomic relation to one another, becoming connected in a larger, relational ecology. A space simultaneously intimate and monumental, ordered and chaotic through the convergence, and clustering of works. The inclusion of both recent and earlier works by participating artists is a testament to the notion of transformation. By positioning these artworks in an alternative context, we accept the notion of dynamic renewal for static objects.

Throughout the exhibition, glass is a recurring element. As a material, glass is the result of an alchemical process where fluid transforms to become static, containing viscosity, a trace of its own lineage and acting as an intermediary between two things. Glass acts as a metaphoric lens, creating visibility and allowing us to view internal structures more clearly. Often connotative of scientific experimentation and archival preservation, glass can reveal as well as conceal matter within its translucency. Stevie Fieldsend’s visceral series ‘Fossil' (2021) highlights this illumination. Made using intense heat, the artist has embedded coal into a mass of solid molten glass, creating air pockets of loose black dust within them. Paradoxically, these heavy forms evoke an innate fragility. Within alchemic thinking, the body could be considered a workshop, transforming one substance into another. Fieldsend’s practice often navigates notions of the lived body and transference, embodying processes of transmutation where a performance occurs between the artist, the furnace and her body. Representative of this act is her series ‘Shape of Breath’ (2021). Unlike her ‘Fossil’ series, it offers us the absence of matter. These biomorphic forms are tangible mediations of the breath and the absent body, by submerging the artist's breath in molten glass. Left behind is the trace of a ritual, a place where transformation has occurred - the pull of gravity, the inhale and exhale.

Kath Fries’ practice is similarly marked by a transformational process through the use of organic materials like beeswax, (dried) mushrooms and found wood, exploring our material and immaterial surroundings, memories and relations. These corporeal sculptures evoke a sense of impermanence through their ongoing degeneration and decay, crossing from one state into another during and beyond the exhibition. Similarly to Fieldsend, the artist focuses on breathing as a reciprocal exchange. Fungi reflect the actions of humans, breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide. In her series ‘Respire’ (2018-2021), lung-like terrariums hold a variety of dried, dying oyster mushrooms, sealed with beeswax in an attempt at preservation within their new, trapped, ecology. Fries’ work ‘Murmurings’ (2021), similarly conjures narratives of ecosystems and kinship, where clusters of mushrooms, felt, beeswax and wood encase a complex network of fungal mycelium, which slowly break down the wood and plant matter; innately transforming the material. This notion of the material existing as a world of living systems is further evidenced in ‘Embracing’ (2021), a large sculpture made from found weathered plywood. In a ritualistic process, the structure traces the materials’ inherent narratives and pathways with beeswax and felt, thus embracing the mycelium relationships and further highlighting the interconnections of these organic processes beyond human intervention.

Owen Leong’s ‘Intimate Debris’ (2021) series consists of sculptural assemblages. These stone tablets present layers of stratified geology, embedded with organic and non-organic elements - crystals, shells, modern plastics - translating to an act of burying personal narratives and memories. These slabs and irregular shards of concrete and gypsum allude to a sense of permanence, and within this permanence precious materials collide with the non-precious to enact a sense of renewal and rebirth. Littered throughout it’s surface are bronze-cast winter mushrooms and wrinkled red dates, reminiscent of traditional Chinese medicine and the meditative act of healing. Traces of the artist’s physical presence can be found through casts of golden fingers. Gesturing inwards, they prompt the oscillation from the turbulent outside world to the infinite possibilities of an inner realm, beckoning us to look both within and without, above and below. Leong’s pointed fingers reference the astral and earth simultaneously. They feel the alchemical importance of both in maintaining enlightenment. These fingers point throughout the room to hardened crystals and blackened debris, working their way into peripheral contemplation. There is fascination and illumination laying dormant within the symbol of the pointed finger, as the active gesture of the limb manifests the alchemical reaction. ‘Intimate Debris’ considers the transformational, cyclic forces of creation and destruction, the imperative need to find order in chaos, and the integral dualism within human nature.

Memory is offered by the artists, not as a fixed entity, but as a mutable and fluid aggregation of traces heavily conditioned by time and place. Animating the analeptic potential of the organic materials engaged with the works, they offer a space where memory is housed and evoked, rather than static in its memorialisation. Exploring concepts of remembrance and restoration, Gianna Hayes’ practice weaves the symbiotic relationship of the Earth’s elements into our daily rituals through a decolonial lens. Within her hand dyed textile work, the artist activates indigo, a plant dye obtained from the leaves of the Indigofera tinctoria plant, through a transformative alchemical process of extraction, fermentation and oxidisation. ‘Untitled’ (2021) explores the hidden commodity of indigo dye within the Transatlatic Slave Trade. This sculptural piece exemplifies the commodification of black bodies, where two yards of cloth was traded for a human being. The duality between the hard and soft aesthetics - weight and weightlessness - of the newly dyed fabric and the heavy, rusty chains evokes a sense of vulnerability and fragility. Resemblant to that of a meat hook, the work is pulled upwards; suspended and constrained. The rust provokes a consideration of the passing of time. The elemental processes that occur over decades, and the inherited traumas of black bodies in resistance to colonial power, through the DNA-like chain formations. The materials engage the old and new, with trace memories and trauma stained into the fibre, and the artist’s iterative attempt to transform the memories of dehumanisation and enslavement. Hayes powerfully revisits the history of oppression through spiritual reclamation and transcendent healing. Exploring how remnants of the past are still vibrating, whilst visions of the future are being born. The artist tethers indigo to the sky (above) and the sea (below), her ancestors (without) and spirit (within).

Similarly, artist Linda Sok’s practice centres around healing and the preservation of culture following the generational trauma stemming from the Khmer Rouge regime. Her recent textile work ‘Salt Water Deluge (Tucoerah River)’ (2021) uses alchemical processes to transform lengths of silk fabrics sourced from Cambodian artisans. The use of silk is indicative of the weaving practice that was targeted and oppressed by the Khmer Rouge. Using a process similar to the method used by the artists’ parents to pickle vegetables, the fabric is subsumed with a saline solution to form salt crystals within the work’s surfaces. By utilising this method, the artist activates a form of preservation and initiates the curing properties found in salt and water as a way of healing. Integral to the work is how memory and trauma can embed itself within objects, becoming a living thing.

The artists in as above, so below reflect an awareness that we, as humans, are a smaller part of a much larger and infinitely complex system of coexistence and reciprocity within the macrocosm and microcosm. Concerned with the transformation of organic materials through alchemical processes, the artists present nature as both beyond and within our integral humanism; an essential rhythm, where everything is in a state of ebb and flow. Within this gallery space, the artists prompt us to consider cause and effect and the interrelations of our personal and collective rituals and memories. How earthly matter can ground us to enact preservation and healing, and the interconnectedness of our external and internal bodies. The exhibition unfolds within a realm of links and relations, an ecology pollinated with dualities and transmutations; of reactions, of residue; of transience; of generation and degeneration; of malleable, significant matter.

Written by Sarah Rose & Hayley Zena
Curators