the C word

25 August 2022 TO 24 September 2022

OPENING NIGHT - THURSDAY 25 AUGUST 6PM

EXHIBITION DESCRIPTION

Culture, Crisis, Comfort, Confusion, Cloak, Concealment, Cocoon, C …

The C word has as many understandings as the individuals who encounter it. Kim Schoenberger takes this ambiguity and melds it into forms and structures that interrogate the societal stasis wrought by a global phenomenon.

In a reflection on our contemporary zeitgeist, the C word investigates the prominence of remembered fears, anxieties, and recurring motifs that surface when faced with uncertainty. Rather than avoid the power of these emotive forces, Schoenberger embraces this energy and unpacks the challenges, opening an experience that juxtaposes imagery with a personal understanding of our current disposition. The intangible becomes tangible, artefacts provoke a visual collocation for the audience, what we define as ugly, disturbing, or uncomfortable speaks to us with a new voice and as a vehicle of discovery.

ARTIST PROFILE

Kim Schoenberger is a Queensland-based artist who has established a strong exhibition profile. Her practice is object- and installation-led, informed by recycled materials and an ongoing interest in domestic and feminine tropes. Reoccurring themes include the Personal, Identity, and Memory in an attempt to explore the threshold between the physiological and the psychological. The visceral nature of her materials offers an evocative language that speaks of connectivity, and she often uses installation as an experiential environment to stimulate participation and engagement with her audience.

Solo exhibitions include Domestic Duties Chapter Three ‘Sacred in the Domestic’, Noosa Regional Gallery (2017-18), Papillon, Caloundra (2016) and Redland Regional Gallery (Cleveland, 2017), Expressions of Love II, Noosa Regional Gallery (2014), and Insight: Journeys in Steel and Clay, Gympie Regional Gallery (2013). She has also exhibited in over forty curated group shows including the Elements exhibition for Horizon Festival 2019,  Local Artists – Local Content, Caloundra Regional Gallery, and  Tightrope, Pine Rivers Art Gallery (2018), You, Me and a Cup of Tea, Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery (2017), Unearthed Treasures and Sunshine Coast Satellite Reef, Caloundra Regional Gallery (2015), and Teasing the Domestic, Artslink Queensland (2013-14).

Schoenberger, who is an Arts Queensland and RADF grant recipient, self-published a book on her work entitled Expressions of Love (2015), and her website is archived by the National Library of Australia as part of the Pandora Archive (2016). She was a finalist in the Moreton Bay Region Art Award and Stanthorpe Art Prize (2015), and twice a finalist in the Queensland Regional Art Award for Flying Arts Alliance (2012 and 2013).

Schoenberger’s work is held in the Sunshine Coast Council Art Collection, The Cathedral of Saint Stephen, and private collections throughout Great Britain, Germany, Japan, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand.

Banner image: Kim Schoenberger, Scar Tissue (detail), 2022, latex, tea bags, ink, calico, and safety pins.