I have been following Tarryn Gill’s work for a while now, from when I was first introduced to her soft sculptures – a suite of Guardians in the 2016 Biennale of Australian art (later acquired, and then shown, by the Art Gallery of SA) to, more recently, her inclusion in 23 Portrait: Identity at the National Portrait Gallery, and her win of the 2023 Lester Prize.
It was these latter two where we started to see Gill really begin to find her professional stride, creating large-scale sculptures in a plump, bronzy-gold fabric, often suspended, but always pushing against our conventions of portraiture and textiles as an expanded practice.
Her latest exhibition Soft, at Gallery Sally Dan Cuthbert in Sydney, continues her earlier Limber series, with a new cluster of works, Tender Bodies. They move from a kind of physical choreography within space – sketched out by “ego-less bodies” as she describes them – to these new more anchored pieces, which are assured and confident in their gesture and making.
A free-standing barre piece, Tender Bodies: In Favour of Softness (1) is mirrored across the room with the wall-based barre work, Tender Bodies: In Favour of Softness (2). In many ways, they are some of the most literal pieces we’ve seen by Gill, as the bodies extend and fold over the frame, mimicking the drills performed in a dance studio. But unlike earlier pieces that have relied on an internal armature, these new pieces coil and drape in their hyper-flexibility.
There is a softness not just in the material, and the bodily flow, but in the emotional gesture – through hands that are meticulous crafted, and hang limp and open. There is a feeling of release that comes with that, which is welcoming and sensual – and their lethargy is counter to the physical demands of the barre. And so we start to move into a world of paradox, where bodily expectations give way to the beauty of human fragility and flaws.
Coiled in on itself on the floor is a third work in this new series, Tender Bodies: In Favour of Softness (3), which echoes Gill’s Lester-winning piece in its introversion. It is all limbs, however, and missing that piercing eye that held our gaze. I can’t help but think of an ensō – a Zen form that is a continuous calligraphic gesture associated with a free state of mind, and a sense of a cycle completed in acceptance.
It sits humbly at the feet of a grand gesture – a wallpaper surface that has been created from a hand-sewn maquette, transforming the rear wall into a theatrical backdrop, complete with opulent drapes, dreamy clouds and a distant horizon holding the hopes of all.
The exhibition is seemingly caught between the rehearsal space and the performance space. Performed along this wall are five facial gestures – Aspects of Self (1-5) – which read as theatrical masks performing different emotions. They have a kitschy, pseudo Grecian or Romanesque quality, as if some ancient tragedy is unfolding in front of us. Are they trying to tell us something, to warn us, charm us?
Gold sequins add both bling and drama to a cheekbone, or shadow of an eye socket. And, as with all of Gill’s works, they are meticulously hand-stitched. These masks tie back to her early Guardians, as abstracted self-portraits that speak to Gill’s interest in Sigmund Freud.
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In her exhibition essay, Heather Webb Martella says: “Soft is a physical projection of an individual’s inner world as she seeks to understand herself and the world she is in. A world where ‘soft’ is an insult. Transforming it from something damaging to healing, reveals glimmers of hope, with the eternal cyclic renewal of the moon.”
That ever-present moon sits central to the exhibition, radiating over the other works. Again, created from hand-stitched Lycra and sequin fabric, it weeps LED tears (coded by Steve Berrick). “We are all soft flesh navigating a world full of sharp edges,” Webb Martella adds.
In some ways, there is a disjunction between the two bodies of work. On the one hand it speaks of a duality of mind and body, of hopes and realities, and yet as an exhibition, it feels divided. What holds it together is Gill’s incredible skill with her material, to not only form it, but to work it with a kind of alchemy as a vehicle for a complex and dynamic range of emotions. The barre works are especially successful in delivering this experience to viewers. Gill continues to be an artist to watch, and is defining her own career trajectory in soft sculpture.
Tarryn Gill: Soft
Gallery Sally Dan Cuthbert
21 September – 3 November 2024
20 McLachlan Avenue, Rushcutters Bay NSW
