Kirra Hill Exhibition
“I always hold out hope. Mediation is an opportunity for each side to present their case, and for us to get back to the table again.”
Ron Weber
I had a realization today as I gave some stuff yesterday but it wasn’t coming from my heart. Perhaps true giving and compassion is when you sacrifice to give even if it’s reducing down to one coffee a day and it’s in the action of sacrifice that you feel the compassion for who you are giving to who suffer.
In this exhibition are four plywood collages, and two large A0 photos and two beach performance videos and three artist books and sixteen brown paper bags with drawings on them made in my recent studio residency in New York at Mothership Brooklyn and a neon sign.
The collages are made up of reflective self portraits mainly and text of what was going through my head when I did the drawings. Sometimes tranquil and sometimes expressing suffering.
The two big photos are me dressed up in different costumes one of me dressed up as Chewbacca from the Star Wars movies and was shown in New York as a video with the soundtrack song fidelity by Regina Spektor about the peaceful coming together of Russian and American culture. The second photo is me dressed up in a maroon suit with black converse hi tops and a white bandanna and my signature style mustard colour felt hat reading a book of drawings about a trip to Europe last year and also about the coming to grips of losing my mum and the associated grief. I love doing shoots on the beach with the Pacific Ocean behind me as I find it incredibly healing.
The two videos are also beach performance shots. One of me as Charlie Chaplain reading a book of my drawings about the Obama family and the other me dressed in a space suit about the idea that if we can land man on the moon, we can overcome global poverty.
The books of drawings were made during my last two residencies one at the Big Ci in Bilpin and the other at Mothership in New York and one in a trip to Europe last year.
There is also a blue neon sign that says compassion and it’s a single word that sums up the Dalai Lamas philosophy.
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” “Only the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we all seek.” “Compassion is the radicalism of our time.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
