Image: Rebecca McEwan. Good nature is natural politeness, 2024, cotton, paper, 25 x 25 x 5cm. Image courtesy artist.
HALLWAY GALLERY & WASH HOUSE | 14 December – 1 February
Guided by ‘Martine’s Handbook of Etiquette’ (1866), McEwan documents the process of forming a new relationship with the river, grounded in understanding and respect.
Excerpt from essay written by Sera Waters 2024.
McEwan’s textiles of threads, string and rope, loop and entwine like this river, whose route turns back on itself with currents swirling and pooling in watery patterns of rounded-ness. McEwan’s circular processes of loom knitting, netting, free-form weaving, tying friendship knots, alongside wavery pencil lines, ink washes, and threads lain into encaustic wax, recount observances from time spent in the river’s company; foaming rippling surfaces, side-eyes from pelicans, upstream jellyfish, swiftly shifting currents. This art weaves in the long roots of localised practicalities, boundless histories of making tied to the tides and movements of the river as a life-force; beings together.
Opens
Saturday 14 December 2-4 pm.
Join Anna and Rebecca for a casual conversation reflecting on their residency.
Limited bar, hospitality and good company to share.
Hope to see you there.
About Rebecca
Rebecca McEwan is a cross-disciplinary artist who lives and works on Kaurna land on the Fleurieu Peninsula. McEwan’s practice encompasses installation, sculpture, drawing and sound. She draws on natural materials, oral histories, and archival material to create work that honours connection to place. McEwan’s intricate and delicate installations incorporate narrative, glass thread, wax, and botanical material. Grounded in observation, her work emerges from site-specific investigations that respond to local histories, the immediate environment, and natural phenomena. Research is pivotal to McEwan’s practice. She frequently engages in community consultation to uncover local knowledge or lore, exploring the way in which ancient knowledge can shape speculative histories, and give rise to pseudo-scientific enquiry. Meditative, layered in its processes, McEwan’s work offers a reflection on the connection between humans and nature and invites a state of reverence. Exhibiting regularly in both South Australia and interstate, her recent projects include We are not Strangers Here at Hillsmith Gallery, and Water Bodies at Floating Goose Gallery, in addition to regular local and interstate artist in residence programs. McEwan has been multi-year finalist in both the Heysen Prize for Landscape and Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize, winning both the Emerging Artist and the Dr Wendy Wickes Memoriam People’s Choice in 2020.
For more information click here
