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Exhibitions

DANCE ON A COUCH BY AN OPEN WINDOW (AFTER BOYD)

From Impulse To Action, Bundanon Museum

29 Jan 2022 - 12 Jun 2022

 

Commissioned for the inaugural exhibition at the new Bundanon Museum, 'Dance on a Couch by an Open Window (after Boyd)' 2021 is an installation, performance and participatory artwork.  Two performances took place on 29 Jan 2022 & 28 May 2022 with collaborating choreographers / performers Angela Goh and Ivey Wawn, and performer Trish Wood.

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The large-scale installations use the sensory effects of colour to play with our perceptions of surface, composition and pictorial space. The soft sculptural ‘wearables’ are temporarily attached and draped within the installation, and audiences are invited to put them on and interact with a simple series of performative prompts. The costumes, made in collaboration with costume designer Leah Giblin, are also worn by dancers during staged performances throughout the exhibition. In inviting us to don the wearables and enact her instructions, Haley makes us a part of her expanded painting and enables us to experience the sensory and kinaesthetic affects from within.

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Rochelle Haley, Dance on a couch by an open window (after Boyd), 2021, acrylic paint, beech timber, canvas, calico, cotton drill, fabric dye, crayon, pastel, ink, charcoal, feather down, magnets, rope, and performance. Costume designer: Leah Giblin. Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh and Ivey Wawn. Fabricator: Kazu Quill. Photo: Zan Wimberley

Nurses Walk

Surgeon's Court, The Rocks, Sydney CBD

8 OCT 2021 - SEP 2022

 

Commissioned by Place Management NSW and The Rocks, and developed with Art Pharmacy, 'Nurses Walk' is a site specific public artwork within a series of art installations in different areas of the Rocks in Sydney's CBD. The overarching narrative of the installations, Revival and Renewal, was a guiding theme for the work. Taking cues from the architectural features of the historical Surgeons Court, the installation repeats motifs in positive and negative forms in bright and lively colours. The design emphasises the sense of passage through to Nurses Walk, named in reference to the former Sydney Hospital that was on this site between 1788 - 1816. The installation glows in different conditions, producing striking shadows, highlighting the play of coloured light both during the day and at night. Haley has created a vibrant experience, encouraging exploration and the discovery of a local place for all Sydneysiders.

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Photo: Anna Kucera

Double Column, Double Veil

Looking at Painting, Casula Powerhouse

18 OCT 2021 - 23 JAN 2022

 

‘Double Column’ and ‘Double Veil’ are installations commissioned for the curated exhibition ‘Looking At Painting’, Casula Powerhouse. The exhibition, catalogue and audio interviews feature esteemed Australian artists including NELL, CARMEN GLYNN-BRAUN, HAYLEY MEGAN FRENCH, JODY GRAHAM, ROCHELLE HALEY, KIRTIKA KAIN, CLAUDIA NICHOLSON, JUDY WATSON AND MS N YUNUPINGU.

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‘Double Column’ and ‘Double Veil’ are works comprising a wall mural and hand dyed suspended fringing, responsive to the Hopper Gallery architecture at the Casula Powerhouse. ‘Double Column’ replicates the scale and arrangement of existing structural gallery columns, and ‘Double Veil’ repeats negative doorway shapes in perspective at the entrance.

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Photo: Chantel Bann 

 

Catalogue

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EVER SUN - City Art Laneways

Wilmot St, Sydney CBD

January - July 2021

 

EVER SUN laneways with two accompanying live performances on 25 Jan & 11 Mar 2021, is one of four new City of Sydney Laneways commissions in Sydney’s CBD, Wilmot Street. EVER SUN is a large scale suspended installation that opens this public space to a sensitive play of light that changes constantly throughout the day, responding to the mood of the weather and natural environment. The artwork contributes an uplifting sense of colour, luminosity, passage, and hope for the city.

 

It was commissioned by the City of Sydney for the City Art Laneways program 2021, and originally commissioned by Performance Space for Liveworks 2020. 

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Photo: Jessica Maurer 

Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh & Ivey Wawn 

Performers: Patricia Wood, David Huggins, Alice Weber
Costume designer: Leah Giblin 

Studio Assistants: Sophie Lane, Lisa Myeong Joo Keighery, Ra Bull & Monika Cvitanovic

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EVER SUN 

Performance Space, Carriageworks

21-25 October 2020

 

A newly commissioned work for Carriageworks' Public Space, presented by Performance Space for Liveworks Festival 2020

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Ever Sun is a new painting and installation work that aims to tune the eye and mind to the constancy and change we experience with the rising and setting of the sun. The artist aims to open a space to be together, sensitively, in the public realm in a way that reminds us of the resilience, necessity and beauty of art. Taking cues from the surrounding architecture, archways of positive and negative forms are invitations to walk through the beaded veils, drawing our attention to the play of light reaching in across the day into the condensed colours of the sunset.

The Invention of Depth

Flat Earth Society exhibition, Cement Fondu

12 October - 8 December 2019

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Commissioned by Cement Fondu for the 'Flat Earth Society' group exhibition, 'The Invention of Depth' is presented alongside other interdisciplinary artists working at the intersection of abstraction and screen-based culture. From the flat plane of canvas to the flat-screens of daily life, their artworks reflect how technology has shifted the possibilities of painting and infused the way we experience and frame our realities.

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Breaching the limits of conventional notions of painting to explore it’s temporal and spatial qualities, Rochelle Haley’s installation 'The Invention of Depth' encompasses the gallery floor and walls, traditional canvas, hand-painted beads and two live performances by Ivey Wawn at the exhibition launch and on November 16. Referencing a pivotal moment in European art history when the illusion of depth was constructed through the use of linear perspective, Haley’s work asks viewers to consider the concepts of depth as mythology and dimensionality as ‘conspiracy’. Working with dancers, Haley uses movement to consider how bodies, gestures and velocities might produce transitory and temporal ‘brushstrokes’ or marks made in space.

 

Photo credits: Jessica Maurer, Four Minutes to Midnight & Yaya Stempler. Copyright and courtesy of the artist.

Interval

Galerie pompom, Sydney

4 - 29 September 2019

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Interval is a series of new abstract works by Rochelle Haley exploring the tension between concrete form and the pull of movement. The works comprising acrylic, dye and resin are made with an innovative technique of layering translucent and opaque pigments, building the illusion of represented depth into a material thickness. By transforming the surface of the abstract painting into a dimensional realm, Interval is able to suggest movement and depth beyond the flat picture plane. 

 

Photo credit: Docqment Photography & Document Photography. Copyright and courtesy of the artist.

Marquetry Score

The John Fries Award finalist exhibition, UNSW Galleries

28 September - 3 November 2018

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A newly commissioned work ‘Marquetry Score’ was exhibited as a finalist in the John Fries Award 2018. The work comprises a painting on board, wall mural, installation elements, a wearable soft sculpture and live performances (with Angela Goh) 28 Sep 2018 and 3 Nov 2018.

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Curator and artist Consuelo Cavaniglia says "Through the expansion of painterly forms onto walls, floors, and as freestanding elements in the space, Rochelle's work engages with architecture and invites the consideration of movement within space".

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This project has been assisted by Copyright Agency Ltd. & The John Fries Award

 

Photo credit: Silversalt Photography & Document Photography. Copyright and courtesy of the artist.

AFTERGLOW

Hazelhurst Regional Gallery

23 - 24 September 2017

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AFTERGLOW is a new major installation and performance work at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery which explores Haley's interest in movement patterns across both choreography and painting. The project involves a group of Physical Culture dancers from 6yrs to adults (Figtree Physie) and collaborators Brooke Stamp (choreographic facilitation) & Kate Scardifield (costumes). 

 

"The project uses colour, pattern, light, shape and dance to create an immersive, living 'painting' which audiences can visually and physically experience" curator Carrie Kibbler.

 

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

 

Photo credit: Document Photography. Copyright and courtesy of the artist.

Bare Loggia

Galerie pompom, Sydney

10 May - 4 June 2017

 

'Bare Loggia' is a painting and installation exhibition exploring light, space and movement. The title refers to the architectural feature, ‘Loggia’, which describes an open gallery framed by pillars and arches, traditionally conducive to the passage of shaded strolls and lost thoughts. Haley’s resin paintings provide a corridor of light filled pauses along an installation of wall painting and reflective surfaces in nude tones, bronze and gold.

 

Photo credit: Jessica Maurer & Document Photography. Copyright and courtesy of the artist.

Spin

Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
29 Apr 2016

 

'Spin' is a performance and installation work by Rochelle Haley staged at the Museum of Contemporary Art 'GOLDEN HOUR' ArtBar, curated by Kate Scardifield. Haley references dance notational drawings of Noa Eshkol to explore transitional spaces created by the moving body. The work is performed in front of Brook Andrew’s light and paint installation ‘Loop. A Model of how the world operates’ 2008. In the performance, fabric forms and gold beaded bling transform drawn lines into fleeting movement in golden light.

 

Photo credit: Document Photography. Copyright and courtesy of the artist. Performers: Ivey Wawn, Angela Goh and Patricia Wood. Also imaged: Brook Andrew’s ‘Loop. A Model of how the world operates’ 2008, copyright the artist.

Flow

Galerie pompom, Sydney

1-27 June 2016

 

'Flow’ is series of new resin paintings that explore ‘shallow depth’ of the material pictorial plane. The works were curated into the group show Solid Gold Easy Action, Galerie pompom, Sydney.

 

VIEW CATALOGUE: essay by Naomi Riddle.

 

Photo credits: Docqment Photography & Document Photography. Images copyright and courtesy of the artist. 

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Spin-Curve

Hazelhurst Regional Gallery

Saturday 12 December 2015 - Sunday 7 February 2016

 

VIEW VIDEO 

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VIEW CATALOGUE

 

Curated by Carrie Kibbler, Patternation is a group show at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery that explores repetition, rhythm, sequence, code and systems that assist us to navigate pathways and make sense of the world.  This exhibition considers conceptual nature of pattern and its affinity with art, science, language, music and movement. 

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Photo credit: Document Photography. Performer: Ivey Wawn

Through Form

Galerie Pompom, Sydney

16 September - 11 October 2015 

 

Through Form is a solo exhibition of paintings that follow topological drawings of dance. Haley reworks unpublished drawings by 20th century dance theorist Rudolf Laban in the mediums of acrylic, oil and resin on exposed linen. Laban’s drawings express a theory of space created by movement of the human form within what he calls a ‘kinesphere’ – an abstract, dynamic body bubble. The range of motion of a stationary body defines the limits of this imaginary space. Haley re-diagrams the space to body relation by transforming the drawn lines into painted forms. The paintings are alternative documents of dance that can reanimate future movement of the body.

 

Photo credit: Document Photography. Images copyright and courtesy of the artist.

The Aesthetics of Change

2010-2015, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, St Erme, Lisbon

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The Aesthetics of Change is an experimental drawing research project initiated by Rochelle Haley in 2010 and developed during a series of residencies and performances in Malaysia, Portugal, Australia and France. The aim of the project is to develop an experimental technique of relational movement communicable through dance performance and drawing. Through this research it is suggested that drawing is a transformational medium of action that becomes an alternative document of dance. Haley has published and presented this research in The International Journal of The Image 2015 and conference proceedings of Drawing International Brisbane 2015, Transversal Practices: Matter, Ecology and Relationality VI Conference on New Materialisms, Melbourne 2015 and Drawing in the University Today, Oporto University, Portugal 2013.

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A Single Movement

Galerie pompom & Alaska Projects, Sydney

June- July 2013

 

Responding to movements in New Materialisms, Haley paints large crystals and stones to discover how they relate to each other and the world. The relationship between the objects in the paintings highlights the limits between them – the invisible edge between things, as they comprehend each other and the vibrant edges of agency as it is spread through objects, things, people.

 

Paintings from this body of work were shown in group shows 'Rue de Bellville' Galerie pompom & 'The Carpentry of Speculative Things' Alaska Projects, Sydney.

 

READ REVIEW

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Dead Precious

Galerie pompom, Sydney

August-September 2012

 

Dead Precious, a body of watercolour paintings, considers how gemstones appear to materialise ordinary light, then fold, slice and set it ablaze as if a piece of magical paper. The exhibition also considers a persistent image from a reoccurring dream had by the artist of an animal skeleton whose abdomen cavity housed a large faceted stone.

 

VIEW INTERVIEW: Das Platforms with Rochelle Haley

 

READ REVIEWS

Silver & Tain

Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney

February 2009

 

Silver & Tain, an installation of four glass works titled after traditional mirror making materials, explores the complexities of reflection and mirroring in the portrayal of bush landscapes of the Central Coast of NSW. Layers of transparent glass, sandblasting and etched mirror combine to create a complex visual experience for the viewer as they negotiate their own reflection.

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Photo credit: Craig Bender

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White Shadow

Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney

February 2009

 

A body of paper works titled White Shadow explores the interrelationship between texture and light in the medium of incised paper. The completely white paper works describe features of arid and desert landscapes in well-known Australian national parks.

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Photo credit: Craig Bender

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Landscape Refrain

Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney

February 2009

 

Like the musical term ‘refrain’ that describes a phrase or verse recurring at regular intervals, Landscape Refrain visually maps the relation between the graphic line and time in transcribing mobile landscapes of travel in trains and other vehicles.

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Photo credit: Craig Bender

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Western Arthur Ranges

Gadens Lawyers Boardroom, Sydney

2007

 

Western Arthur Ranges is a large-scale 7m x 3m wall mounted wool rug installed in the boardroom of commissioners Gadens Lawyers, Sydney. The work was realised in collaboration with Designer Rugs.

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Photo credit: Tamara Gulic

 

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