Presented by the Queensland Art Gallery in association with the ENERGEX Brisbane Festival 2000 Exhibition dates: 30 September – 12 November 2000 | Website: www.visualarts.qld.gov.au/fortitude Yenda Carson "Glass continues to be a primary medium . . . because of its . . . derivation from both the land and water; being a product of the earth . . . initially and made through human intervention . . ." Yenda Carson was born in 1967 and received a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Fine Art, with Honours, from the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University in 1992. Carson has received grants for a number of projects, including studio residencies in Korea and the Philippines. She has exhibited widely throughout Queensland and has been included in exhibitions in Melbourne, Seoul, Bangkok and Manila. She is currently a teacher at Kowanyama Aboriginal Community State School. Artwork Yenda Carson creates large-scale sculptures and installations. The medium of glass is central to her artistic practice, although she also works with photography, works on paper and painting. Her abstract installations are metaphors for natural phenomena, symbolising the awe-inspiring beauty of both landscape and seascape. She often uses shards of shattered glass to evoke both danger and desire. This is a reference to the sublime landscapes of nineteenth century Romantic art. In her 1994 work, Channel, a glass floor piece is lit by an internal fluorescent light. The effect created is that of a luminous breaking wave or tunnel through which energy is channelled. Geographical and social contexts, as well as the actual site of installation, play a pivotal role in her work. In Porous orientations, glass shapes are suspended from the Gallery ceiling. Their shimmering abstract forms are derived from bodies of water encountered by Carson while living in Kowanyama on Cape York. Artist statement [These] artworks are visual variations of my concerns with landscape, and my experiences of it throughout my travels in Australia and overseas. Recently, probably within the past two years, water has been extracted from this interest and has become a key element in my work, as a symbol relating to spiritual development, to environmental issues and to certain rites of passage of an historical and current nature, that make connections with the land. I currently reside in Kowanyama on Cape York in Queensland, where I am learning about these relationships through direct contact with the Indigenous habitants. In upholding the importance of these relationships, I have been ceremoniously baptised by the Kokomenjenna people, given a bush name, and totem in recognition of this understanding. Glass continues to be a primary medium for these expressions because of its material derivation from both the land and water; being a product of these earth sources initially and made through human intervention and manufacture. It is in this process of intervention that an interest in the built environment becomes apparent in my work. Through various large-scale installations, and in public artwork commissions, I have explored this relationship as a symptom of modernity, the way land and space is shaped to our desires and needs, and paradoxes what already exists naturally. Extra text ‘We are not sea people by way of being great mariners, but more a coastal people, content on the edge of things. We live by the sea not simply because it is more pleasant to a lazy nation, but because, of the two mysteries, the sea is more forthcoming; its miracles and wonders are occasionally more palpable, however inexplicable they be. There is more bounty, more possibility for us in a vista that moves, rolls, surges, twists, rears up and changes from minute to minute. The innate human feeling from the veranda is that if you look out to sea long enough, something will turn up. We are a race of veranda dwellers and, as Philip Drew writes in his recent architectural study: "The veranda is an interval, a space, where life is improvised. The beach, in Australia, is the landscape equivalent of the veranda, a veranda at the edge of the continent".’ Tim Winton, Land's Edge, 1993, p. 37. Selected bibliography Boyd, Adam, Ground Up [exhibition catalogue], Artspace, Sydney, July 1999. Chapman, Christopher, ‘Room service’, Broadsheet, vol. 25, no. 4, summer 1996–97, p. 23. Clabburn, Anna, ‘Who is art for?’, in Moët & Chandon Touring Exhibition 1996 [exhibition catalogue], Moët & Chandon Australian Art Foundation, Box Hill, 1996. Fitzsgibbons, A. M., ‘Channel’, Eyeline, no. 28, spring, 1995, p. 34. Genocchio, Benjamin, Prima Donna [exhibition catalogue], Gallery 4A, Sydney, September 1998. Keniger, Michael, ‘Civic dynamics’, Architecture Australia, vol. 88, no. 3, 1999. p. 66. Kubler, Alison, ‘Yenda Carson’s objects for an architect’s desire’, in Objects for an Architect’s Desire [exhibition catalogue], Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane, 1998. Mahoney, Bronwyn, [essay in] Channel [exhibition catalogue], Doggett Street Studios, Brisbane, 1995. Morrison, Anne, ‘Walk on water’, in Across the Water [exhibition catalogue], Selenium, Sydney, 1995. Palmer, Maudie, ‘Keeping the fizz in Queensland’, Artlines, April–May 1996, pp. 8–9. Roe, Jae-ryung, ‘Currents: The voyage/passage from Brisbane to Seoul’, Currents [exhibition catalogue], Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, 1998. Stoneley, Renai; Clark, C.; and Mahoney, B., [essay in] Wish You Were Here [exhibition catalogue], Smith + Stoneley, Brisbane, 1999. Barker, Penelope, ‘Art and Architecture’, Belle Corporate Design, May 1999, p. 60. Warfold, Chris, [essay in] Angels for the 21st Century [exhibition catalogue], Fortitude Gallery, Brisbane, 1996. Solo exhibitions 1998 ‘Objects for an Architect’s Desire’, Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane. ‘Currents’, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea. 1996 ‘Illuminations’, Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane. ‘Angels for the 21st Century’, Fortitude Gallery, Brisbane. 1995 ‘Reach’, Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane. ‘Across the Water’, Selenium, Sydney. ‘Two Columns’, Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane. ‘Monopoly — Art for The Bridge’, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. ‘Channel’, Doggett Street Studios, Brisbane. 1994 ‘Overland’, Magazine Space, Eagle Street Pier, Brisbane. ‘Paintings’, Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane. 1991 ‘Mine’, Space Plentitude, Brisbane. 1990 ‘Drawings and Vessels’, Mount Nebo Artspace, Brisbane. Group exhibitions 1999 ‘Wish You Were Here’, Satellite Space, Smith + Stoneley, Brisbane. 1997 ‘Soft’, Gallery 4A, Sydney. ‘Plastic (and other) Waste’, Chulalongkorn University Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand. 1996 ‘Moët & Chandon Touring Exhibition 1996’, Moët & Chandon Australian Art Foundation, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Queensland Art Gallery, South Brisbane; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. ‘Gold Coast City Conrad Jupiter’s Art Prize’, Queensland. ‘City of Hobart Art Prize’, Hobart. ‘Artists’ Books Exhibition’, Brisbane City Gallery, Brisbane. ‘Ang de Latang Pinoy’, Hiraya Gallery, Manila, Philippines. 1995 ‘Gasworks 5th Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition’, Gasworks, Melbourne. ‘Trance Plant’, New Farm Powerhouse, Brisbane. ‘Claiming Turf/Claiming Fortitude’, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane. ‘Logan Art Award’, Logan City Art Gallery. 1992 ‘Final Configuration’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane. ‘Artworkz Four’, Gallery 101, Collins Street, Melbourne.

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