24HR Art is financially assisted by the NT Government through the Department of the Arts and Museums and the Australia Council,the Federal Government's arts funding and advisory body. D E N N I S B E Z Z A N T

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Dennis Bezzant has been working as an artistin Darwin for several years. His art practice since hegraduated from NTU has been based around thepractice of weaving. Dennis first studied thetraditional preparation and manipulation of plantfibres while working in Sarawak. His teacher wasan Iban weaver who worked in a culture whereweaving continues to contain many levels ofmeaning encompassing both secular and spiritualtruths. 1

Over the subsequent years while living andstudying in Darwin he has explored the boundariesof weaving and fibre arts through a wide variety ofmedia including metal and natural fibres. In twoexhibitions , ‘Simply Baskets’ and ‘indica’, linkedin style and material, Dennis created monumentalsculptural forms based around baskets and othertraditional woven forms. ‘Simply Baskets’ is anironic title, for the work is anything but simple. Thetitle refers to the ubiquity and long history of weavingthroughout the world; a history Bezzant is proud tobe part of and continue as a male weaver in theWest. Morag Frser states: “Bezzant reads Basketsas a medium of adaption and change”. 2

Bezzant has sourced his materials in the mostcommon of locations. Flagfellaria indica, from whichmost of the sculpture is made, is a widespread plantin northern coastal Australia and even survives insuburban Darwin backyards.

These sculptural forms are suggestive on asubliminal level and represent a beautiful synergybetween form and materiality. The elegant, minimalsensitivity of these works, coupled with their scalepushes notions of weaving to another dimension.

James Bennett, Curator of South East Asia Artand Material Culture at the Museum and Art Galleryof the Northern Territory has written about Bezzant’swork: “The search for clarification of individualidentity and creative vision weaves each individualinto the social fabric. For this artist it is through theordinary and unassuming act of gathering andbinding natural fibres…Dennis, has been a culturalbroker in our perceptual re-positioning of muchindigenous material culture, such as fibre items, fromethnography into art…These sculptures take on therhythm of thought like the singing of traditional maleweavers in other, more exotic contexts.”3

For Bezzant weaving resonates both physicallyand metaphorically, as inter-cultural meshing. Theact of making the sculptural forms is informed by apersonal biography that binds together severalcultural and social divergences.4 His interest incombining the traditions of Celtic weaving of his ownancestors with traditions of Malaysian and otherindigenous practices conceptually underpins his work.

Cath BowdlerOctober 2001

1James Bennet, Indica Catalogue, 20002 Morag Fraser, Simply Baskets?, Art Monthly, March 20003James Bennet, op cit.4James Bennet, op.cit.

A r t i s t ’ s S t a t e m e n t

Weaving is a fundamental process of organic Life. From thesimplest of plant forms to the complexity of human relations,weaving speaks metaphorically of the interconnectedness ofall things.

In my work, the weaving of objects such as baskets, and othermore ambiguous forms, represents not only a personal journeyinto the historicity of Celtic weaving traditions but alsoacknowledges weaving as a universal activity practiced by manydifferent cultures. In this sense my fibre installations establishthe concept of unification, a meeting ground on which divergentcultures merge.

Dennis Bezzant

D E N N I S B E Z Z A N T

J A C K I F L E E T24HR Art is financially assisted by the NT Government through the Department of the Arts and Museums and the Australia Council,the Federal Government's arts funding and advisory body.

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Jacki is a well established Darwin painter,printmaker and sculptor who has engaged in adetailed investigation into the landscape of the TopEnd of Australia. Like many artists residing in theNorthern Territory, Jacki has been drawn to sublimeand spiritual qualities in the landscape. Herinvestigation has led her to depict not the outwardsigns of the land, the Western view of landscape,but the inner rhythm and pulse of the country.

Originally a figurative painter and printmaker,Fleet continues to paint in a combination of oil andacrylic on canvas. She has made many trips intothe country, particularly the Kimberely region of NorthWestern Australia. During this time she formedrelationships with Aboriginal artists from the areaand this ‘other’ world view has informed her work.Over time she has become drawn to the iconicpresences of termite mounds and their inhabitantsthat proliferate in the Top End landscape. The termitesbecome the metaphorical symbols of spirit in theland for Fleet. They play out their lives floating abovethe earth’s surface and in the spaces below,responding to the rhythms of the seasons. Theyinhabit the soil and the earth, the air and the sky;the material and the ethereal.

Through several bodies of work that haveexplored the motif of the flying ant, Fleet has everrefined her vision. Her paintings have become moreabstract as she comes closer to the subject, finallyresulting in canvasses of pure shimmering energyand light in the Pulse series. The figures withdiaphanous wings that fill the Pulse canvases, createa luminosity that is intricate and subtle. They arelike tiny charged particles flying into the chaos ofspace.

The prints are more earth-bound that thepaintings yet they share a similar iconography. Theyare printed, using a photopolymer process onJapanese ogami paper, exploiting its translucency.By exploiting a combination of printing processesthe images are layered with the spirit motifs,imposed over another image of a woven spiralbackground.

Daena Murray has written of Fleet’s Pulsepaintings: “In her work Fleet has drawn attentionto the rhythms of nature as ciphers of the spiritualenergy underpinning all life. In Fleet’s worldscapesspirit and matter become fused in microcosmsinhabited by creatures subject to elemental stimuliand cyclic existences…These are spiritual works notbecause they refer us to nature but because theyrefer us to sacred geometry, to the circle and thesquare of the mandala, the mystical emblem ofEastern religions…”. 1

Fleet has honed her vision of the land and thesky and what she paints is the world in between.She has broken through the physical plane with thePulse works into the metaphysical realm, the purelysensate realm of resonance and energy. Thesecanvases are a meditation on the passing of life, itstransience and transcendence and fragility.

Cath BowdlerOctober 2001

1Daena Murray, Pulse Catalogue, 1999

A r t i s t ’ s S t a t e m e n t

Essentially my work explores the phenomena of our existence,both physical and spiritual, and alludes to the mystery of thesoul.

“flower and heart are equal, as one unfolds the other is closing,the fist of charm, the dance of fathoms, of voids, of veils, layerafter layer, wall after wall, there is always more after. There isalways more after…”1

Jacki Fleet

1Patti Smith – “Easter (la Resurrection)”, Easter, Arista USA, 1978

J A C K I F L E E T

24HR Art is financially assisted by the NT Government through the Department of the Arts and Museums and the Australia Council,the Federal Government's arts funding and advisory body. T E C H Y M A S E R O

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Techy Masero, of Chilean descent, has beenliving and working as an artist in Darwin for thelast 16 years. Her installations have beeninstantly recognisable as an integral part ofnumerous festivals and community events in theNorthern Territory over the last ten years. Sheworks on a large scale creating structures out ofnatural materials drawing inspiration from theenvironment, traditions and her ancestral roots.

Her work, which celebrates cultural diversityrests mostly in the arena of public and communityart. Masero has developed a longstandingrelationship with Filipino community groups inDarwin, working closely with them on festivaland numerous art projects including the AsiaPacific Cultural Village. This association with Asianand Indigenous cultural groups has formed thefoundation for further development of the artsin the Territory.

Nearly all of Masero‚s work has beencreated site specifically in public spaces and muchof it is ephemeral. Masero is interested in creatingnew spaces and in encouraging interaction withthe physicality of the work through its placementin spectacular locations using familiar symbolssuch as birds, boats, fish, water and totemicfigures. The finished structures form a delicatetracery of cane against the sky, like massive linedrawings dominating the space for a momentyet occupy the mind of the viewer long after theoriginal work has disintegrated and gone backinto the ground. This delicacy belies the strengthof the pieces that must withstand the elementsand their effects.

A r t i s t ’ s S t a t e m e n t

My work explores the connections between natural and ancientcultural

forms and seeks to stimulate the unknown depths of theimagination to

evoke internal reflections of voyages.

Techy Masero

T E C H Y M A S E R O

Describing Taking Off - a large outdoorinstallation made in 1996, Suzanne Spunnerwrote: “Techy Masero has made a reputation inDarwin for very ambiitious projects involving largenumbers of people. Her interest in rituals andthe Asia Pacific has led her to explore a publiccelebratory kind of art. Taking Off, a huge Asianstyle boat carried on the back of a mystical bird,was ceremonially launched at Mindil beach.Masero says the structure symbolises Darwinwith its cultural diversity and its needs forexploration and exchange”. 1

Prophetic words indeed as Masero is nowcreating a large sculpture on a beach in thePhilippines. Her work in Palawan will continuealong the same trajectory of exploration andexchange. The Kamarikutan Gallery which ishosting Masero in the Philippines is also madeentirely out of natural materials using indigenousconstruction methods; a fortuitous synergybetween philosophy and actuality across differentcultures.

Cath Bowdler.October 2001

1Suzanne Spunner, Headland Headspace, Artlink vol 65, 1966

W I N S O M E J O B L I N G24HR Art is financially assisted by the NT Government through the Department of the Arts and Museums and the Australia Council,the Federal Government's arts funding and advisory body.

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Winsome Jobling has been experimenting withthe art of paper making for over twenty years. Shemoved to Darwin in 1982 and has been investigatinga range of natural fibres ever since as part of herresponse to her environment. When she moved toDarwin Jobling was taught by Aboriginal womenabout collecting plant fibres, using bush dyes andnatural weaving techniques. She has made paperout of pandanus fibre, banana fibre, paw paw, sugarcane, pineapple fibre and local grasses a veritabletropical cornucopia – linking her art practice to thenatural bounty of the tropical environment. Sourcingand almost nurturing the raw materials becomespart of the art making process.

Jobling is constantly pushing the boundaries ofher craft. She has created her own home basedtechnology to do this, creating single sheets of paperalmost 2mx1m, a triumph of the art. She oftenworks on a large scale and treats paper sculpturally,challenging traditional notions of paper as disposableand small in scale. Jobling often suspends these largeworks in three-dimensional space.

One well known body of work, Dress Ups,consisted of oversized dresses, patterned withwatermarks and stencils, which were shown at 24HR Art. Reminiscent of childhood when all clothesseemed oversized, Jobling’s monumental garmentsdwarfed viewers yet remained fragile andtranslucent. The dresses were made from bananafibre that produces a rich creamy paper of greatstrength and translucency, but which also has afragile and a sensuous quality. In more recent workJobling has been further exploring translucency andwatermarking where the image is inherent in thepaper rather than applied to it.

Emma Davies wrote: “Jobling’s paper works area tangible expression of the environment. Her workhas developed from depicting the landscape usingpaper, to letting the paper speak of the landscapefrom which it is drawn. She allows the distinctseasonal changes experienced in the Top End todetermine the physical qualities of the paperproduced”.1

Jobling’s practice is strongly linked to theenvironment for both political and physical reasons.Her work is strongly located in this place but itsconcerns are universal. For Jobling, paper is a carrierof history and a form of tangible memory, somethingthe rest of us take for granted.

Cath BowdlerOctober 2001

1 Footnote????

A r t i s t ’ s S t a t e m e n t

Paper is part of our history as a carrier of maps, research, textsand information yet it is also the great disposable ofcontemporary society.

In this work I am manipulating handmade paper, a product ofthe earth, part of my environment - as a reference to themanipulation of land, geography and ecology. Past histories(both European and Indigenous) are all part of this work.

Aboriginal people see the land as a record of all that hashappened. It is their creation and ancestors, laws and ceremonyand as a food source to harvest and nurture. Land is life, identityand culture.

To us it is a commodity to buy and sell, a resource, somethingwe use. New developments replace our history -– a palimpsest.Grids placed over the land; as the european way to ‘understand’IT OR fencing it into defined areas, denying access or input - asuperficial rather than a spiritual view.

Winsome JoblingThanks toCath BowdlerJohn Gibson©Santa Maria Madalena the papermakers patron saint

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