RECENT NEWS

CONVERSATIONS WITH BEES
Goulburn Regional Art Gallery
22 November - 1 February, 2024

This show evolved from research around the European ritual ‘telling the bees’, where honeybees are told of recent deaths in a beekeeper’s household. It is believed if the bees are not informed they might leave the hive and follow the deceased into the afterlife. It is understood the practice has its origins in Celtic mythology where bees are regarded as messengers between the natural world and the spirit realm; a portal connecting the living and the dead.

Over the past few years the artist have been delivering photographic negatives to two hives of honeybees. These images are witness to ecologically disturbed sites along the ever-shifting shoreline of Ngungara/Weereewa/Lake George.

Conversing with bees is a practice of recognising and grieving the losses of a changed and changing world. This exhibtion is a reflection on liminal [in-between] spaces, and a consideration of how European mythology has become entangled within the Australian landscape.

https://goulburnregionalartgallery.com.au/exhibitions/sammy-hawker

2024 NATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY PRIZE
Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA)
23 March - 1 September, 2024

***Beyond the Veil [diptych]***
National Photography Prize, 2024
image: Jeremy Weihrauch

***Material Resonance [beyond the veil]***
National Photography Prize, 2024
install image: Jeremy Weihrauch

Chromatography is a photographic process invented in 1900 and commonly used by scientists to understand the chemical makeup of soil. Sammy Hawker has been testing the process’s capacity to facilitate the visual expression of a wide range of vibrant matter. Expectations must be set aside, as the hues and patterns that form as the solution spreads over the silver nitrate-soaked paper cannot be predetermined or controlled.

In Material Resonance [beyond the veil] the chromatograms speak to the memory inscribed within materials. A chromatogram made with drowned caterpillars found in a trough has the ethereal markings of a moth wing. A chromatogram made with a dehydrated placenta feels like life bursting forth out of an abyss. The artist also receives requests from those who wish to memorialise the lives of loved ones. This series is bookended by a chromatogram made with the ashes of a stillborn baby and a chromatogram made with soil from environmental philosopher Val Plumwood’s natural burial grave.

These chromatograms raise questions about a person’s ability to express themselves from beyond the veil. Disintegration can also be thought of as metamorphosis and sometimes it feels like the essence of a material (or being) is not necessarily tied to form. A notion as mysterious and effervescent as a chromatogram made with water from a sinkhole within the forest of takayna.

The artist acknowledges Caterpillars in Metamorphosis was created on Wiradjuri Country and Chromatogram of Val Plumwood’s grave was created on Walbunja Country. The artist has ongoing relationships with the custodians of these areas and permission to work with materials from Country. Beyond the Veil was created on palawa Country within takayna, lutruwita while the artist was visiting the site to create work for the Bob Brown Foundation. The personal chromatograms have been granted permission to be exhibited publicly.

[HOLDING] SPACE EXHIBITION
Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf
6 March - 17 March, 2024

Sammy Hawker, *space_3 (the physical universe beyond the earth's atmosphere)*, 2024

How does a space communicate? What exists in ‘empty’ space? Topographically, a harbour (noun) is a holding space – a body of water protected from the wind, waves and ocean currents that churn beyond; deep enough to allow anchorage. To harbour (verb) is to keep a thought or feeling, especially secretly. Sydney harbour is a holding space of secrets and memories; the residue of its history saturates its bays, banks and depths.

Processed with water from the harbour, the analogue photographs in this exhibition resonate with the memories that exist within. They tell of the dark violence of colonisation, the dendritic pattern of the harbour’s sunken river valley, the fig trees that line its shores and the icy comets & grains of solar dust that formed the Earth’s oceans.

The works in this exhibition were created during a 3- month artist residency at Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf. The artist would like to acknowledge the Gadigal, Birrabirragal & Cammeraygal people - the Traditional Custodians of the lands & waters that the works in this series were created.

https://www.woollahragallery.com.au/Artists/Artists-in-Residence/Sammy-Hawker

ABC ARTS [Febuary, 2024]
profile by Eloise Fuss

https://amp.abc.net.au/article/103444912