Time Out Sydney
review by Alannah Sue
17 apr. 2024

*Beyond the Veil* (diptych), 2023, pigment ink-jet print on archival cotton rag. Image credit: Jeremy Weihrauch

[excerpt] — Sammy Hawker’s ephemeral images call to mind the visual echoes of planets, galaxies, and Victorian era ‘aura photography’. The ACT-based artist (Ngunawal/Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country) uses Chromatography, a photographic process invented in 1900 that is primarily used by scientists to understand the chemical makeup of soil. However, Hawker uses the process to create abstract “portraits” from ash or ‘dead’ matter – recording the vibrancy of sources as disparate as drowned caterpillars, a real human placenta, and soil from a grave. Sammy also receives requests from people who wish to memorialise their lost loved ones, and with permission, a Chromatogram created from the ashes of a stillborn baby is included in the body of work displayed at MAMA. Merging the scientific with the emotional and spiritual, ‘Material Resonance [beyond the veil]’ speaks to the energy or memory inscribed within materials; yielding vivid, striking, and eerie results. — review by Alannah Sue.