From Impulse to Action — Vivian Cooper Smith

From Impulse to Action
29 January – 12 June 2022
Bundanon Art Museum

From impulse to action centres on Arthur Boyd’s drawings in ink, both brightly coloured and monochrome, as the starting point for 12 new commissions by Australian contemporary artists working in a diverse range of disciplines.

A central example of the expansive power of Boyd’s drawings are his 1963 designs created for Robert Helpmann’s ballet Elektra. They represent the potential for small, experimental works to translate into large-scale, interdisciplinary projects, and to shift from image to performance. In parallel, the commissioned artists reflect the immediacy of Boyd’s drawings through choreography and film, photography and sculptural installation, weaving and sound. Nearly all the works were developed through site visits and residencies.

At its heart, From impulse to action is a celebration of Bundanon as an important site of cultural production, one that has existed for thousands of years. It draws on the creative energy of experimentation, proposing a connection between artists past, present and future.

This is my song to you and my last breath

There is a joy to making. There is a vitality in shaping and forming material. There is a charged energy in gesture and marking and a profundity in ‘working with’ and ‘listening to’. These are some of the things I’ve found through turning photography away from the window and towards the elements of light, colour, texture, gesture and form. These components are remixed in endless array, guided by the responses materials give to the challenges I set. I imagine, construct, test, observe, adapt and imagine again. Over and over. As I do, I am reminded that this is my place. It is my belonging, carved out from a life without grounding. It is how I breathe and it is what I can give, this song made of pictures. Vivian Cooper Smith, January 2022