Installation of 'The Oh No Sun'
OuterSpace, 3-24 August, 2018
Holly Anderson attempts to articulate, through painting, her anxiety and neurosis towards a world in a state of ecological crisis. Rather than hold us hostage with a visual lecture on environmentalism, Anderson examines her own tumultuous relationship with a sun too hot and weather burdened by global warming. The Oh No Sun exposes the irony of sun soaked summer landscapes as romantic sites of pleasure; for Anderson these places come coupled with ominous warnings of skin cancer, radiation and environmental destruction. Burnt bodies, blinding sunlight and turbulent waters act as a cross-section of violence experienced in these places. Anderson walks us through this heatwave with a gentle hand and equally gentle paintings – with the threat of the sun beating down on our backs we are shown a familiar world made strange, reminding us that Australia boasts the second highest diagnosis rate for melanoma and that we are probably due for a skin check.
- Caity Reynolds, OuterSpace director
Documentation courtesy Charlie Hillhouse