Artists:
Robert Baines

Ros Bandt

Clare Belfrage
Bronwyn Goss
Jacqui Gropp
Adrian Jones
Janie Matthews
Anne Neil
Susan Purdy
Sue Saxon
Liz Williamson

BRONWYN GOSS

Artist's Statement

For many Australians, religion and culture transplanted from other lands are still largely disassociated from place.

This group of objects is to be used in a simple family ritual when a child is born into Australia, as a means of bonding them to this country in both a physical and spiritual sense. Water is the medium used. The first drink is dew and the first wash is in rainwater. In drinking and in bathing, water has universal symbolic significance and in this arid country, to know its efficacy means survival. 

In the work, materials and forms are to be read metaphorically as in a poem. 


Stream of Leaves Rice paper and graphite pencil 90 x 30

CV

Selected Exhibitions

1999            Contemporary Australian Craft to Japan, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art

1995     Place and Perception, Parliament House, Canberra

1993-4  Art of Adornment, Australian Contemporary Jewellery, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto and touring Asian venues

1992            Bronwyn Goss New Work, Crawford Gallery Sydney

1991     First Australian Contemporary Jewellery Biennial, Jam Factory, South Australia and touring most Australian capitals.

Collections

Art Gallery of Western Australia

The Parliament House Collection, Canberra

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston

Curtin University

Griffith Regional Gallery

Curator's Statement

This series of work has been developed to mark the sacred moment when a person first enters the world. Non-indigenous Australians have brought with them rituals and objects to mark this occasion. What would an 'Australian' rite of passage be like? Bronwyn Goss takes her materials from the simple dispensations of nature -- from dew, rain, wax and fish. Gold and silver is used as the setting, rather than the feature of these ritual objects.

Note

The 'flagon of sweet dew', Sanskrit Amrita karka, is symbolic of the sacred doctrine of Buddha. A bronze vessel with a spout is sometimes used by Buddhist priests for annointing the worshippers with holy water. Rainwater and dew are believe to possess remarkable medicinal and alchemistic value. 'Pure dew collected without contamination with earthly things is superstitiously supposed to confer the enviable blessing of immortality on the fortunate being who is successful in quenching his thirst at dawn of day with a precious draught.'

form C.A.S. Williams Chinese Symbolism and Art Motifs

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