A celebratory closing event will be held for Renee So: Provenance, inspired by UK poet Emily Berry’s 2017, ‘Drunken Bellarmine’, an ekphrastic poem written in response to So's darkly comical knitted work of the same title. So’s artworks are the provocation for a range of responses to be read by five invited writers; these new written works will be available as a free broadsheet during the exhibition and at the event.
Contributors: Lisa Gorton, Bella Li, Leah Muddle, Ling Toong and Saaro Umar
Hosted and curated by Bella Li
Lisa Gorton writes poetry, fiction and essays. Her awards include the Prime Minister’s Award for Fiction, the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry, and the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal. Lisa has contributed poems to Izabela Pluta’s book Figures of Slippage and Oscillation (Perimeter Press, 2019) and written in response to Mira Gojak’s sculpture Prop for Instabilities II for the 2021 Buxton Contemporary exhibition This is a poem. Lisa’s most recent collection Mirabilia (Giramondo, 2022) was awarded the Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Award.
Bella Li is the author of Argosy (2017), Lost Lake (2018), and Theory of Colours (2021), published by Vagabond Press. Her work has won the Victorian and NSW Premier’s awards for poetry and an ABDA award for book design.
Leah Muddle is a poet, arts/crafts practitioner and a retail worker. She has a chapbook titled Enchantment or a meal (Shower Books); other writing appears in the Rabbit + Heide book House of Ideas: Modern Women (ed. Jessica Wilkinson), as well as the Australian Poetry Journal, Cordite Poetry Review and Overland.
Ling Toong writes poetry and prose. Her most recent work has been published in journals such as Australian Poetry Journal, Rabbit and Cordite. She was one of the featured poets in Rabbit + Heide, House of Ideas: Modern Women 2021.
Saaro Umar is a writer. Her experimental work Two Uncles came out from Incendium Radical Press in 2021.
Images: Animated loop featuring graphics of the name of the exhibition, Renee So: Provenance, and closing event details and images of works by Renee So: 1. Drunken Bellarmine II 2023, courtesy of the artist; Kate MacGarry, London; and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney. Photo: Andrew Curtis; 2. Steatopygous Bellarmine 2022, courtesy of the artist and Kate MacGarry, London. Photo: Angus Mill; 3. Bronze Vessel 2020, courtesy of the artist and Kate MacGarry, London. Photo: Angus Mill; and 4. Venus of Valdivia 2019, courtesy of the artist and Kate MacGarry, London. Photo: Rob Harris. Graphic design/artworking by A Practice for Everyday Life.
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