Curated by multiple award-winning installation artist Pimpisa Tinpalit, SOL Gallery, now in its ninth year, has had stalls in art conventions in Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. This could partially explain how it attracts artists of a consistently high standard, often from many parts of the world. Rowena Hannan, whose imposing sculptures fill the first three rooms of its latest exhibition, is a case in point.
Hannan has been an artist for over 30 years, has taught art for many of them and is even a co-author of a VCE art textbook. Her new show, Devotion, explores how artists new to Australia in the 19th and early 20th centuries tried to understand and relate to their new environment. She uses ceramics – although some appear to be wood at first glance – to create three-dimensional portraits that mix reality, symbolism, mysticism and often an emotion you can’t quite put your finger on.
For instance, Come Closer and Home, the former dominating the window looking out onto Fitzroy’s Brunswick Street, the latter being the first room’s centrepiece. Both these intricately carved works are of a young girl whose entire torso is inhabited by an owl, creating a display of beautifully understated, ambiguous symbolism.
These emotions and symbolic elements run through her work, perhaps most impressively with Forest, a series of five human busts with crowns of tree trunks sprouting from their bald heads, all of them asleep or in a trance. It’s simultaneously visually striking and emotionally meditative, as if the viewer joins them in their sleep/trance while watching them.
The symbolism continues in the next space, a group show of seven artists, some emerging, some accomplished, with the theme ‘Passage: A Journey of Life’.
The room is like a labyrinth of creativity, reflection and awareness, conscious or otherwise. Mediums vary, such as Morgandy Walker’s Concrete Poems, printed on hanging sheets of paper, neighboured by works in oil, watercolour and meok (Korean black ink).
Santiago Mals’ Quimera and his seven-panel series of works are certainly notable highlights. Quimera is a new take on the Greek legend, blending an Asian woman with the monster of Greek mythology. The work tells a narrative story, one this reviewer ascertained as a tale of manifesting, in other words, asking the universe for something and the universe responding. The story uses a paper plane as a catalyst (or is it the lingua franca between the two characters?), and each of the panels works as a stand-alone piece in terms of technique, composition and a subtle sense of mystery.
Other standouts from this group show include Vanessa Chen’s flowing, symbolism-dripping dreamscape Transient Reverie, Diego Salas’ Hummingbird in Flight and Yoony Yoony’s If 04 and Samsin Universe, although the room is filled with potential favourites.
SOL also features a window gallery, a small space looking onto Brunswick Street, and this is currently filled by Liza Posar’s artworks, including her array of flower-headed clay sculptures.
There’s also a permanent store room in the back, filled with the work of a gloriously eclectic assortment of artists from previous exhibitions, such as Nani Puspasari, Chamnan Chongpaiboon, Creature Creature and Andrew Fyfe.
SOL will be turning 10 next year, so get excited for whatever the gallery has planned.
Rowena Hannan: Devotion, Group show: Passage: A journey of life and Liza Posar will be exhibited at SOL Gallery, 420 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy in Victoria until 4 May 2025; free entry.
