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Slow Churn, The Condensery, Toogoolawah, 2022

External reading

Kernel and Desiccate

As part of Slow Churn, The Condensery Toogoolawah, QLD

9 April – 3 July 2022

Group show included Zanny Begg, Lindy Lee, Mylyn Nguyen, Jody Rallah, Yasmin Smith, Judy Watson and Elizabeth Willing

Curated by Rachel Arndt and Olivia Welch.

Triggering a strong olfactory impact with the sweet and resinous scents of Dulce de Leche being used as an oozing glue to stack fresh cut timber, Willing’s Desiccate is a site-specific engagement with both milling and dairying histories.

As trees were once cut down with great physical labour, butter churned by hand, and milk skimmed manually, Wiling’s work is imbued with labour and process. Referencing the original function of the condensery as a condensed milk packing facility, the artist has arduously boiled down this liquid to form the sickly sweet caramel. The timber, leaning against the gallery wall, was sourced within the region.

In her work Kernel, Willing invites audiences to partake in labour as they lather cobs of corn that the artist has freshly shucked into a sculptural slab of butter – another dairy item connected to the region. The aftermath of this participatory performance in then cast and memorialised in the gallery space. Through these works that create new relationships between viewers and everyday items, it is not how or why we use these materials that is conjured, but rather what is involved in the human transformation of each raw element – something that is easy to neglect in the aisles of supermarkets and hardware stores.

-Olivia Welch, catalogue excerpt

Desiccate. Local firewood and dulce de leche. 150 x 30 x 80cm. Image courtesy of The Condensery, Photograph by Filmertography
Desiccate. Local firewood and dulce de leche. 150 x 30 x 80cm. Image courtesy of The Condensery, Photograph by Filmertography
Kernel (performance). 30 kilos of butter sculpted by hot corn, moulded and cast in Forton, fibreglass and pigment. 60 x 60 x 7cm. Image courtesy of The Condensery, Photograph by Filmertography
Kernel (performance). 30 kilos of butter sculpted by hot corn, moulded and cast in Forton, fibreglass and pigment. 60 x 60 x 7cm. Image courtesy of The Condensery, Photograph by Filmertography
Kernel (performance). 30 kilos of butter sculpted by hot corn, moulded and cast in Forton, fibreglass and pigment. 60 x 60 x 7cm. Image courtesy of The Condensery, Photograph by Filmertography
Kernel (performance). 30 kilos of butter sculpted by hot corn, moulded and cast in Forton, fibreglass and pigment. 60 x 60 x 7cm. Image courtesy of The Condensery, Photograph by Filmertography
Kernel. 30 kilos of butter sculpted by hot corn, moulded and cast in Forton, fibergalss and pigment. 60 x 60 x 7cm. Image courtesy of The Condensery, Photograph by Filmertography
Kernel. 30 kilos of butter sculpted by hot corn, moulded and cast in Forton, fibergalss and pigment. 60 x 60 x 7cm. Image courtesy of The Condensery, Photograph by Filmertography
Kernel. 30 kilos of butter sculpted by hot corn, moulded and cast in Forton, fibergalss and pigment. 60 x 60 x 7cm. Image courtesy of The Condensery, Photograph by Filmertography
Kernel (process). 30 kilos of butter sculpted by hot corn, moulded and cast in Forton, fibergalss and pigment. 60 x 60 x 7cm. Photograph by Elizabeth Willing
Kernel (process). 30 kilos of butter sculpted by hot corn, moulded and cast in Forton, fibergalss and pigment. 60 x 60 x 7cm. Photograph by Elizabeth Willing