AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
AIRspace Projects
5 - 21 November, 2021
Stevie Fieldsend · Kath Fries · Gianna Hayes · Owen Leong · Linda Sok
“as above, so below; as within, so without; as the universe, so the soul”
We are miniatures in the eyes of the larger cosmos in which we exist, while simultaneously holding status as giants in the eyes of the atom.
We gaze up, we stare down. The realisation dawns that duality exists in every context. That which is mystic has eternally charmed and terrified humans across our existence. If there is one entity, there is an equal in greater and smaller form. Often referred to in occultist studies, believed to be Hermetic in origin, this is the artist’s practice of alchemical inspiration. Divine in nature, human in action. A spiritual transmogrification that lies within the qualities of the elements and natural world. Transmutation abounds from below the earth to the astral planes, the trust rests purely in the artist’s sleight of hand.
push and pull
as above, so below investigates alchemical transformations as a way of exploring personal mythologies, rituals, transience, and speculative ecologies. The artworks in this space exist as a tangled ecosystem, exploring the mutually dependent web of living and non-living materials - above and below the surface. Water, salt, crystals, metals, mycelium, plant matter, and glass. Artists Stevie Fieldsend, Kath Fries, Gianna Hayes, Owen Leong, and Linda Sok employ the aesthetics of nature through evocative and embodied encounters with organic, earthen materiality. These creative alchemists navigate our integral being, and the interconnectedness of all things.
Envisioning an intuitive exploration of the relationship between matter and memory, the exhibition attempts to deepen our understanding of the self, the world and beyond. The metamorphosis of materials from one state to another is an ancient alchemical process, underpinned by the notion that all matter is an interplay of opposing, antagonistic forces. This dualism evokes essential questions around reciprocity, co-existence and the exchange – or correspondence – between two equally disparate polarities. Reflecting this thinking, the exhibition adopts its title from ancient Hermetic principles in which the practice of alchemy is deeply rooted. In this context, ‘as above, so below’ is often posited as whatever action an individual manifests on Earth will be reflected in the spiritual or astral plan. Similarly, that which happens in nature is reflected within the human body – we are analogous with the same material as the universe – psychologically, noetically and physiologically. These structural similarities are often referred to as the macrocosm (the great order or universe as a whole), and the microcosm (the smaller order or the human being). These smaller systems are considered miniature versions of the larger cosmos, and its celestial mechanics and terrestrial events.
Alchemists often attempted to take common, uneven, material things and transform them into something spiritual, divine, and obscure – a practice not dissimilar to the artists in the exhibition. This potential for transmutation of a material into something other than originally intended offers the potential to embed new meaning. The processes of gravity, crystallisation, sedimentation, abrasion and erosion, sometimes operate quite independently from human intervention and the artist’s guiding hand. Within as above, so below it is often the trace or residue of something occurring from a reaction, transference, of living, morphing matter.
Acting as a continued provocation towards the inherent dualism underpinning the exhibition is the observation that the exhibition space engages two rooms – one dark and one light – and has been moulded by the decision-making of two curators. The uncomfortable reality of life and death, sweet and sour, natural and constructed, is reflected through the antipodal dark and light tones of the dual spaces.
Walking through the first gallery, it becomes clear that there is a heaviness that expands through to illumination within the second space. The works have germinated and pollinated across the spaces, where organic materials have sprouted sporadically along the floor and up the gallery walls. They avoid the audience’s touch, propagating out of reach and evading the eye through sky hangs and grounded plinths. The works no longer exist in isolation, but are in taxonomic relation to one another, becoming connected in a larger, relational ecology. A space simultaneously intimate and monumental, ordered and chaotic through the convergence, and clustering of works. The inclusion of both recent and earlier works by participating artists is a testament to the notion of transformation. By positioning these artworks in an alternative context, we accept the notion of dynamic renewal for static objects.
The artists in as above, so below reflect an awareness that we, as humans, are a smaller part of a much larger and infinitely complex system of coexistence and reciprocity within the macrocosm and microcosm. Concerned with the transformation of organic materials through alchemical processes, the artists present nature as both beyond and within our integral humanism; an essential rhythm, where everything is in a state of ebb and flow. Within this gallery space, the artists prompt us to consider cause and effect and the interrelations of our personal and collective rituals and memories. How earthly matter can ground us to enact preservation and healing, and the interconnectedness of our external and internal bodies. The exhibition unfolds within a realm of links and relations, an ecology pollinated with dualities and transmutations; of reactions, of residue; of transience; of generation and degeneration; of malleable, significant matter.
Written by Co-Curators, Sarah Rose & Hayley Zena
