About the exhibition
From impulse to action takes Arthur Boyd’s drawing practice as its starting point, generating a series of commissions by artists from diverse disciplines. These new works respond to the dynamic spirit embodied in Boyd’s practice of ‘thinking through drawing’, a methodology he returned to throughout his working life. A spontaneous way of working, it captured that initial moment of discovery at the start of any creative process.
A central example of the expansive power of Boyd’s drawings are his 1963 designs created for Robert Helpmann’s ballet Elektra. They represent the potential for small, experimental works to translate into large-scale, interdisciplinary projects, and to shift from image to performance. In parallel, the commissioned artists reflect the immediacy of Boyd’s drawings through choreography and film, photography and sculptural installation, weaving and sound. Nearly all the works were developed through site visits and residencies.
At its heart, From impulse to action is a celebration of Bundanon as an important site of cultural production, one that has existed for thousands of years. It draws on the creative energy of experimentation, proposing a connection between artists past, present and future.
Curated by Sophie O’Brien with Boe-Lin Bastian
01. Arthur Boyd
Left to right:
Figure, baby and ram, 1965–1970, ink on paper. Bundanon Collection
Horse and bird, 1965–1970, ink on paper. Bundanon Collection
02. Dean Cross
Axiom #1, 2021, fabricated neon, edition 1 of 3
03. Arthur Boyd
Top row:
Figure and dogs, 1965–1970, ink on paper. Bundanon Collection
Flower headed man with crutches and dog, 1965–1970, ink on paper. Bundanon Collection
Bottom row:
Two figures and a butterfly, 1965–1970, ink on paper. Bundanon Collection
Two figures with pram and dog, 1965–1970, ink on paper. Bundanon Collection
Arthur Boyd is well known as a painter and printmaker. In this exhibition, however, the focus is on the experimental drawing practice that was the starting point for all his work, whatever the medium. Boyd himself said: ‘I make many drawings hoping for something to latch on to’, and ‘You’ve got to start, you’ve got to make a mark, and go from there’. These works leap into the creative process, searching for the centrifugal force of an idea and embodying a raw creative energy.
04. Skye Saxon
Cosmic mirror door through space and time, 2021, acrylic, ink, Biro, Texta, pencil, Glitter Gel pen, Artline pen on paper
Skye Saxon is a performance artist and creator of mystic characters, drawings and stories. Her practice is alive with ideas, collaborations and alternate realms where the lives of her characters can play out.
The works in Cosmic mirror door through space and time are composed of many layers of coloured Texta pen, pencils and ink. Overlaying circles and other shapes above and beneath energetic line work, Saxon creates textured compositions that recall the stuff of science fiction. The drawings take inspiration from the surfaces of the scribbly gum (Eucalyptus haemastoma), which are native to the coastal plains and hills around New South Wales.
Speaking about her process, Saxon says, ‘When I write my scribble gum writing, stories float up and down to me. My scribble gum writing flows quite magically, and it feels like I have been doing it for over 100 years.’
Works include: Cosmic graveyard, Magical cosmic sailing ship, Night webbing, Cosmic planetoids, Cosmic junkyard, Cosmic forest realm, Cosmic void, The beach of four suns, Futuristic living, Cosmic explosion, Spaceage caving, Cosmic fairy floss storm, Butterfly house, Mystic cosmic spider web, The cosmic solar system and The three ringed circus.
05. Uncle Steve Russell and Aunty Phyllis Stewart
with Benett Bolt, Selina Coleman, Drai Cowan, Joel Deaves, Kaine Green, Robert Mcleod, Tyrell Mcleod, Jacob Morris, Raymond Timbery and Jordie Thomas Fishtrap, 2021, water vine (Cissus hypoglauca), running postman (Kennedia prostrata)
Fishtrap, 2021, water vine (Cissus hypoglauca), running postman (Kennedia prostrata)
Uncle Steve Russell and Aunty Phyllis Stewart are artists and weavers known for their work revitalising understanding of local Aboriginal technologies and culture. They make sculptural and functional works and share knowledge through workshops and participatory projects.
For this exhibition, Uncle Steve has worked with the young men of Gadhungal Murring, teaching traditional techniques for making fishtraps and
nawi (canoes). Bringing together the knowledge of many makers and experts, the 2011 Bundanon nawi was the first Aboriginal bark canoe to float on the Shoalhaven River in living memory. A decade later and coinciding with the opening of Bundanon’s new Art Museum, Uncle Steve has passed down these skills to a younger generation, who learnt to build a new nawi from local blue-leaved stringybark (Eucalyptus agglomerata), and a woven fish trap from water vine (Cissus hypoglauca) and running postman (Kennedia prostrata) harvested and dried onsite.
This generous sharing of knowledge brings communities together to learn and make, building relationships that form the cultural and social fabric of the New South Wales South Coast region.
06. Arthur Boyd
Left to right:
Black and white figures below branch, 1965 or 1966, drawing in brush and black ink. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Figure, black head and beast, 1965–1970, drawing in brush and black ink. Bundanon Collection
Black and white head in coffin, between 1966 and 1968, drawing in brush and black ink. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Black figure with white bending figure, 1965 or 1966, drawing in brush and black ink. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Four-legged beast with tree head, 1965 or 1966, drawing in brush and black ink. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
07. Izabela Pluta
Counter forces, 2021, dye-sublimation prints on fabric, repurposed timber, bronze, ceramic, chromogenic prints. Artist assistant: Savanna Hopkinson. Joiner: Geordie Malone
Izabela Pluta’s photographic practice explores the function of images and the idea of ‘place’. Her works highlight the mutability of geographic boundaries —a subject informed by her experience as a Polish migrant and by broader considerations of the effects of globalisation on culture, politics and the environment.
To develop Counter forces, Pluta visited Bundanon multiple times to document the museum during construction. On later visits, she used an overhead projector to insert her images back into the unfinished site and documented them again.
The final work is an alternately suspended and propped installation reaching more than six metres up the museum’s rear structural wall. Its printed surfaces are anchored by bronze hands, a studio backdrop and long struts fabricated from repurposed timber painting easels. Through this combination of print and sculpture, Counter forces maps the many iterations of the museum’s development. Unlike a single photographic representation, Pluta’s portrait shows us many readings of how the museum has come into being and the ripple effect of its insertion into the natural environment.
08. Arthur Boyd
Left to right:
Not titled (Moth-like beast with red figure), between 1968 and 1970, drawing in colour food-dye. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Not titled (Coloured moth-like beast attacked by clawed forms), between 1968 and 1970, drawing in brush and food-dye, brush and black ink. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Not titled (Four amorphous coloured forms floating above four white flower), between 1968 and 1970, drawing in brush and food-dye, gouache and wash. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Black shape spouting with beasts in background, between 1968 and 1970, drawing in brush, food-dye, black ink, collaged elements made of dyed cut paper and tissue paper. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
09. Jo Lloyd
Death role, 2021, single-channel video with stereo sound, costume, reproduction of Elektra backdrop. Videographer: James Wright. Composer: Duane Morrison. Costume designer: Andrew Treloar. Costume construction: Hailey Scott. Producer: Michaela Coventry. Backdrop reproduction: Michael Betts
Jo Lloyd is a dance artist whose work positions choreography as a socially driven and collaborative practice. She has worked with other choreographers, dancers, composers, dramaturgs, producers and designers to develop works for presentation in a variety of contexts, including theatres and galleries.
Death role comprises a large video projection set before a seven-metre-high reproduction of Arthur Boyd’s central backdrop for Robert Helpmann’s Elektra ballet, Double figure with shark head and horns (1962–1963). The video captures an unrecognisable Lloyd with her face obscured, wearing a costume fringed with hair and grappling with the backdrop. Her body is dwarfed by the scale of the drawing, but she remains persistent. In this distorted, effortful dance Lloyd continues on, after Elektra—a lone, extreme figure seeking resolution after tragedy.
‘I am the shape you made me. Filth teaches filth.’ —Elektra
10. Kate Jones
All the moons that have fallen on your face, 2021, clay and ochre sourced from Bundanon, terracotta, slips and glazes
Kate Jones is a ceramicist known for her slab-built terracotta forms. The surfaces of her works are painterly and intuitive, created from washes of the slip terra sigillata.
While developing these sculptures, Jones explored renowned essayist Anne Carson’s translation of Sophokles’ Elektra from An Oresteia (2009), reflecting on the characterisation of women in Ancient Greek texts. Carson discussed the literary depiction of women as wet, porous and chaotic—in contrast to men, who are epitomised as dry, boundaried and rational. She considered the implications of this in an ancient society that viewed boundaries as paramount to civilisation.
Jones’ final work consists of three tall sculptures made from terracotta and a font of Bundanon clay holding white ochre and water. Like the women of Ancient Greek literature, Jones’s vessels are a little leaky, mutable and unbounded. Their presentation on a large, low-set steel stage emphasises their position as characters in a silent performance. In this work, Jones considers the protean nature of her medium and explores materials and their symbolism, from unrefined to rarefied.
11. Dean Cross with Uncle Steve Russell and Aunty Phyllis Stewart
700 bowls, 2021, natural fibres and standard shelving
Dean Cross uses painting, installation, photography and text to reflect on and interrogate colonial narratives in Australia. His works are inspired by a range of influences including YouTube, Ancient Greek myth, the natural environment and his own personal histories.
In 700 bowls, Cross has ‘rematerialised’ an entry from the list of provisions devised for the First Fleet. This 200 year old list included 700 wooden bowls, 8000 fishhooks and 700 hatchets alongside other tools, livestock, food and clothing. The installation highlights the irony of the list—First Nations technologies and expertise would have made these items readily available.
700 bowls is a collaboration with local Elders Uncle Steve Russell and Aunty Phyllis Stewart, who taught Cross bowl weaving at Bundanon in 2016. It is a participatory project—visitors are invited to join a weaving workshop at the museum and contribute their first bowl to the installation. In developing a work that teaches the technique of weaving, Cross, Uncle Steve and Aunty Phyllis have come together to document and preserve South Coast practices and traditions and share them with all Australians today.
The artist would like to acknowledge Uncle Steve Russell and Aunty Phyllis Stewart, whose cultural knowledge and generosity have made this project possible. He would also like to thank everyone who has given their time to contribute a bowl, and would like to encourage them all to keep weaving. Always was, always will be.
700 bowls weaving workshops will take place on the following Saturdays from 12–4pm: 19 March, 23 April, 21 May. For bookings click here.
12. Photographs
Left to right:
Axel Poignant, A woman works on the backdrop designed by Arthur Boyd for the performance of ‘Elektra’, Covent Garden, England, 1963, digital reproduction of black-and-white photograph. © Axel Poignant Archive, National Library of Australia, Canberra
Axel Poignant, Rehearsal of ‘Elektra’ with the Eumenides’ Furies backdrop designed by Arthur Boyd, Covent Garden, England, 1963, digital reproduction of black-and-white photograph. © Axel Poignant Archive, National Library of Australia, Canberra
Rehearsal of Elektra, with Nadia Nerina as Elektra and David Blair as Orestes and members of The Royal Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, 1963, digital reproduction of black-and-white photograph. Photo: Grossman, LIFE Magazine. © ArenaPAL, Nadia Nerina Collection, Royal Opera House, London
13. Arthur Boyd
Left to right:
Double figure with shark head and horns (‘Elektra’ backdrop), 1962–63, etching and aquatint, printed in black ink with plate-tone, from one plate. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Daphne (from ‘Elektra’ backdrop), 1962–1963, etching and aquatint on paper. Bundanon Collection White joined figures (from ‘Elektra’ backdrop), 1962–1963, etching and aquatint on paper. Bundanon Collection
White joined figures (from ‘Elektra’ backdrop), 1962–1963, etching and aquatint on paper. Bundanon Collection
14. Skye Saxon
Left to right:
Magical handwriting 1, Magical scribbly gum writing 2, 3, 2021, acrylic and ink on paper
Magical scribbly gum writing 1, 2021, ink on paper
Magical handwriting 2, 2021, ink on paper
15. Kaitlen Wellington
True reflections, 2021, paint, acrylic, stereo sound. Sound design: Marco Cher-Gibard
Kaitlen Wellington uses writing and storytelling to reclaim her narrative as a young Yuin woman. An emerging writer, Wellington experiments with poetry, prose, visual art and sound to communicate an experience of trauma and healing.
For the exhibition, Wellington has developed three new texts presented as large-scale wall works with a soundscape of field recordings. True reflections explores her personal experience of intergenerational trauma and the struggle for recovery. Composed of bold text and mirrored surfaces, the poetry conveys the artist’s feelings of confusion, denial and brokenness. The powerful language reflects a close examination of historical wounds, as well as her experience bearing their effects. To develop the sound components, Wellington recorded clapsticks, vocals and field recordings in nature, such as nowra (black cockatoos) and gadu (the ocean). For Wellington, the beach is a sacred place, and the ocean soundscape ties this healing song together.
She says, ‘In nature I have found my truth, because nature never lies. I believe it’s a reflection of me—you—and everyone.’
16. Arthur Boyd
Left to right:
Figure and beast interlocked (from ‘Elektra’ backdrop), 1962–1963, ink on paper. Bundanon Collection
Not titled (Clytemnestra costume design for Royal Ballet production of ‘Elektra’), 1963, drawing in brush and black ink and ripolin paint. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
17. Tina Havelock Stevens
A burst of boiling rage, 2021, single-channel 4K digital video installation with stereo sound, 15:30 min. Original composition: Malcolm Arnold. Producer, director and performer: Tina Havelock Stevens. Director of photography: Jackie Wolf. Sound recordist and mix: Jem Hoppe. Editor: Kathy Drayton. Camera assistant: Jubilee Chan. Artist assistant: Anny Mokotow. Gaffer: Aleksei Vanamois. Colourists: Dwaine Hyde, Jackie Wolf. Make-up: Angela Brookes
Drums in a burst of boiling rage, 2021, 220 × 220 cm, 100% New Zealand wool carpet, designed with Elliott Bryce Foulkes
Tina Havelock Stevens’ practice is multidisciplinary and informed by her roots as a drummer in the post-punk music era. She is well known for her
improvisational drumming and immersive installations, which capture her as a medium, channelling the atmosphere around her.
The focal point of her commission is a video that sees her improvising to composer Malcolm Arnold’s orchestral music for Robert Helpmann’s ballet Elektra. The title of the work and the custom made carpet in the installation refer to a quote from dance critic Richard Buckle’s review of the ballet in 1963. The overall aesthetic references the design of the Elektra theatre programs and the red, black and white of Arthur Boyd’s set design. This mise en scène is viewed through a glass window into the museum collection store, creating the effect of a life-size diorama and emphasising the theatrical nature of the Elektra tragedy.
In Helpmann’s ballet, Elektra is pushed, pummelled and thrown around by the Furies, usually portrayed as female deities of vengeance in Ancient Greek mythology. Havelock Stevens reinhabits the wrath of the Furies in her performance, challenging the many masculine aspects of Elektra; Sophokles’ original play, Arnold’s music, Helpmann’s choreography, and Boyd’s costume and set designs.
18. Vivian Cooper Smith
This is my song to you and my last breath, 2021, digital C-type prints
Vivian Cooper Smith is known for his conceptual approach to photography, where studio materials as well as the camera and photographer are each equal and active players in his process.
His approach is influenced by feminist theorist Karen Barad, who champions ‘diffraction’, a phenomenon taken from classical physics describing the movement of waves and particles through and around one another. Barad proposes that, rather than creating hierarchies or dispelling old ideas to create new ones, ideas could be read through one another—diffractively—positioning the development of meaning as a positive, creative act.
In the title of this commission, Smith proposes his work as an artist to be his best possible offering to the world. The phrase is used to structure the form of the images that were created with light, gesture and action. Smith’s process offers us a new way of experiencing a photograph, whereby an image is defined by how it was created as opposed to what it represents.
19. Arthur Boyd
Top left to right:
Not titled (Clytemnestra costume design for Royal Ballet production of ‘Elektra’), 1963, drawing in brush and black ink. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Elektra costume, 1963, drawing in brush and black ink and ripolin paint. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia Elektra, 1963, drawing in brush and black ink and ripolin paint. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Not titled (Elektra costume design for Royal Ballet production of ‘Elektra’), 1963, drawing in brush and black ink and ripolin paint. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Not titled (The Furies costume design for Royal Ballet production of ‘Elektra’), 1963, drawing in brush and black ink and ripolin paint. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Bottom left to right:
Not titled (The Furies costume design for Royal Ballet production of ‘Elektra’), 1963, drawing in brush and black ink and ripolin paint. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Not titled (Elektra costume design for Royal Ballet production of ‘Elektra’), 1963, drawing in brush and black ink and ripolin paint. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Not titled (Clytemnestra costume design for Royal Ballet production of ‘Elektra’), 1963, drawing in brush and black ink and ripolin paint, Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Not titled (Clytemnestra costume design for Royal Ballet production of ‘Elektra’), 1963, drawing in brush and black ink and ripolin paint. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Not titled (The Erinyes mask design for Royal Ballet production of ‘Elektra’), 1963, drawing in brush and black ink and ripolin paint. Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
Living and working in London from 1959–1971, Arthur Boyd was invited to undertake design commissions for the performing arts. In 1963 he designed the costumes and set for Robert Helpmann’s Elektra, performed by the Royal Ballet in London, and toured internationally by the Australian Ballet. The ballet was a contemporary realisation of the Greek tragedy by Sophokles, and was the perfect vehicle for Boyd to draw on the mythology and symbolism of an ancient story of justice, fate and freedom. The drawings from this decade, and specifically those for the production
of Elektra, are the springboard for 12 new commissions by contemporary Australian artists to launch the new Art Museum at Bundanon.
20. Rochelle Haley
Dance on a couch by an open window (after Boyd), 2021, acrylic paint, beech timber, canvas, calico, cotton drill, fabric dye, crayon, pastel, ink, charcoal, feather down, copper, rope, magnets and performance. Costume designer: Leah Giblin. Choreographers/Performers: Angela Goh and Ivey Wawn. Fabricator: Kazu Quill
Rochelle Haley’s large-scale installations use the sensory effects of colour to play with our perceptions of surface, composition and pictorial space.
Her practice centres on the intersections of dance, drawing and painting.
For this exhibition, Haley has built on the ferocious energy and colours of Arthur Boyd’s ink drawings from the 1960s by hand-painted long lengths of fabric. The resulting soft sculptures—‘wearables’— are attached and perched upon elements within her installation. With a repeated motif of curved archways, the wall painting and sculptures are responsive to the museum’s new architecture, interacting with changing light conditions, sightlines and the natural pathways visitors use to move through the space.
With the assistance of museum staff, visitors can put on the wearables before performing a simple series of movements. The costumes are also worn by professional dancers during staged performances throughout the exhibition. In inviting us to don the wearables and enact her instructions, Haley makes us a part of her expanded painting and its sensory and kinaesthetic effects.
21. Emily Parsons-Lord
Every essence of your beloved one is captured forever, 2021, single-channel video with stereo sound, steel, charcoal sourced from Bundanon, manufactured diamonds. Videography: Kate Blackmore and Zan Wimberley. Sound: Meg Clune
Emily Parsons-Lord makes artworks from and relating to air. Underpinned by research in the fields of politics, climate and environmental science,
her practice centres on air as a catch-all concept through which to explore discourses relating to the climate crisis.
The cyclic conversion of carbon is evident in the Bundanon landscape, from the trees to the coal-rich layers beneath the earth. This is referenced in Parsons-Lord’s materials: dry ice, carbon dioxide’s solid form; charcoal, from bushfire-affected trees; and diamonds, manufactured using techniques that accelerate the combination of geological force and heat that would typically take between 1 billion and 3.3 billion years.
The environmental themes of the work are made complex by Parsons-Lord’s memories of the site, which she visited as a child with her mother, who has since passed away. The video captures fragments of the landscape, interspersed with documentation of her dry-ice sculpture transitioning from solid to gaseous. What remains are raw materials, including a diamond created from her mother’s ashes. This precious residue collapses the artist’s personal history with Bundanon’s geological history, exploring the potential for memory to reside in objects of carbon.
22. Arthur Boyd
Left to right:
Two figures with butterfly and dog, c.1960s, brush and ink on paper. Courtesy of Australian Galleries
Lovers with butterfly, c.1960s, brush and ink on paper. Courtesy of Australian Galleries
The lovers, c.1960s, brush and ink on paper. Courtesy of Australian Galleries
Two figures meeting, c.1960s, brush and ink on paper. Courtesy of Australian Galleries
Figure with flowers and beast, c.1960s, brush and ink on paper. Courtesy of Australian Galleries
23. Shan Turner-Carroll
The snake, the rock and the river, 2021, photography, sculpture, digital inkjet print, cement, coral wood, repurposed materials, paper, plastic, plaster. Photographic technician: Zan Wimberley
Shan Turner-Carroll embodies the role of the trickster, magician or pilgrim. His practice encompasses photography, wearable sculpture, installation and the documentation of subtle performative gestures that see him interact with his environment and the objects and people around him.
For his commission, Turner-Carroll began by consulting with seven psychics for guidance. He received various overlapping messages; the most prominent one emphasised the surge of energy throughout the Bundanon landscape and encouraged him to use his intuition as a working methodology. At Bundanon, he was struck by three primary visual ideas: a splash in the river, a red-bellied black snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus) and Telstra Rock—an informal staff name for the rock on which mobile phone reception is best.
The many objects and images in The snake, the rock and the river reflect Turner-Carroll’s exploration of these ideas, connected by the poetic and physical effects of waves, vibrations and ripples. Interacting like notes in a musical composition, the components of this installation reveal the transmission of energy between all things—animal, human and landscape.
Installation includes: Jawbone conductor, Jawbone, Sculpture for snakes, Body imprints, Satellite hat, Snake handling gloves, The Splash, Mouth receptor, Inner ear, Third eye sunglasses, Underwater bonnet and Telstra rock.
Supported by
Proudly funded by the NSW Government in association with Create NSW and the Environmental Trust.
Thanks to our significant lender, the National Gallery of Australia, and the Australian Galleries.