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The Golden Pantomime
MADELEINE CRUISE & RUBY PILVEN
Art Gallery of Ballarat
1 August 2020 - 7 February 2021
For Ballarat-based artists Madeleine Cruise and Ruby Pilven, the process of creating artworks is as important as the artworks themselves – it is a daily necessity much like preparing and eating a meal.
For this exhibition the artists have come together at the dining table to tell the stories of their lives – set with a glittering array of vessels and painted objects the table becomes a stage where domestic theatre plays out.
The golden pantomime is a showcase of artworks produced by Cruise and Pilven individually and in response to each other’s work. Pilven’s porcelain and stoneware ceramic pieces are based on both historical and imagined forms that act as story tellers and props from domestic and natural spaces. Likewise, Cruise’s interior paintings feature table ware and decorative objects that celebrate the ritual in everyday life.
With the common theme of still life as spectacle the artists have also made a series of collaborative works. These include lyrically painted ceramic pieces and small theatrical sets that reference the architecture of the artists shared home Ballarat.
From the artist, Madeleine Cruise:
‘In preparation for my exhibition with Ruby I have focused my attention on two common themes in our work, the vessel and our home in Ballarat. With a pre existing practice in still life I have worked to develop my own vessel vocabulary that draws on colours and shapes from Ruby’s work and symbolizes my experiences of relocating to Ballarat from NSW in 2019.
I have used my painting practice to ‘settle into’ and appreciate my new home so the work includes both personal narratives and observational images. Scenes from the Ballarat botanical gardens and Sturt Street scape are reoccurring in this series, as is the use of ornamentation and colour that I have appropriated from Ballarat’s floral displays and architecture. Punctuating these compositions are images of vessels, abstract shapes and animal motifs that tell stories about surviving winter, new friendships, identity crisis and environmental concerns.
The presence of gold and patterns of treasure is a re occurring motif developed in this body of work that likens hunting for gold to soul searching. Like Ruby’s use of gold lustre the presence of Gold in my paintings and prints acknowledge the history and environment of our studio practice in the former gold rush town of Ballarat.’