Expressions of Love II
Noosa Regional Gallery, 22 January 2014 to 16 February 2014
‘As a child you live in the moment, not even imagining what the future holds. Working with the recycled tea bags, using the skills that had been passed down to me, I was reminded of just
how fragile the past is and how important it is to preserve these wisdoms for the future’
– Kim Schoenberger.
Expressions of Love II unveils a unique unravelling of the transitional paradigm that is love, presenting a rationale of generational sisterhood forged through shared experience, set against a backdrop of evolutionary momentum.
Continuing on from Expressions of Love 2010, Kim Schoenberger succinctly explores the tangible remnants of treasured memories via the inspired use of recycled teabags, alluding to wisdoms bequeathed from fragile mouths over the embedded institution of the cup of tea.
Resurrecting the discarded attestation of the humble home brew for the second time, Schoenberger acquaints her audience with well-balanced sepia tones of the past offering a nostalgic, yet hopeful, remembrance of yesteryear, her works imbued with a contextual understanding of the binary symbolic and physical metamorphosis encountered, offering a doorway into an untouched dimension where the past is acknowledged and the future shines like a paragon of expectation.
Once again, Schoenberger delivers an exhibition of quality which nurtures her audience’s sense of placement, gently coaxing those who dare to journey with her into a realm of historic transcendence, rejoicing in sentiment whilst simultaneously surrendering to the dissonant realities of life in its true essence.
Schoenberger integrates a technical excellence and a delicate creative aesthetic in her work with a cohesive praxis, juxtaposing strength with frailty and ancestral lineage with modernist acquaintance.
Drawing the energy of the wider community into the narrative of her pieces by virtue of the tea bags donated by her extended neighbourhood, Schoenberger is interestingly seen to extend the proverbial kitchen table to encompass an assorted demographic which basks in the theme of inclusion; a nod to the notion of belonging, as the conversation is broadened.
Rag Rug and Cols Cushions have been attentively handpicked from Expressions of Love 2010 to be re-exhibited, physically articulating the nexus between the debut works and their predecessors, whilst pieces such as Evening Gloves and Latched with Love suggest a new awakening and a movement from retrospection into prophetic acceptance.
Skilfully crafted through the use of an antique treadle sewing machine and vintage spinning wheel, Schoenberger’s works show what can be effectuated in using the old and discarded to create the new and relevant, drawing attention to the dying crafts and guilds of this age, and perhaps being so bold as to make a comment on the notion of progress.
Schoenberger’s intelligent discussion of signification within the framework of life’s passage through the exquisite harnessing of the vitality of her materials, impresses on her audience an inimitable sense of intimacy.
With every work comprising of hundreds of tea bags, some pieces intermittently adorned with porcelain (buttons for Evening Gloves, for example), Schoenberger teases, as she has in previous exhibitions, with the symbiotic yet opposing nature of the materials – hard yet soft, aged yet pertinent – personifying the interdependent axioms of surrender and acceptance; of letting go and moving forward.
Jessica Jane Sammut
Writer
Six page catalogue is available upon request