MELBOURNE.- Working Models comprises 20 small individual sculptures considering ideas of built architecture and the readymade. The occasion marks Nolan’s eighth solo exhibition in collaboration with
Anna Schwartz Gallery, in a relationship spanning 34 years.
Assuming the language of the monument, Nolan’s scaled architectural models are materially comprised of modest and often discarded domestic packaging. Cement, wood, and steel attuned to the construction of suburban homes, factories, and water towers, are replicated with everyday paper, carboard and wine screw tops – reimagining architectural buildings with domestic placeholders. Cylindrical shipment tubing mirrors the colonnade, both modern and historical, Twining’s tea box labels identified as patterned reflective windowsills and tilted carboard corners as astrological viewing platforms, as in James Turrell Fun Palace, 2023.
Housed within in the upstairs gallery are two diagonally placed eight-meter, twin-span shelving units. Constructed from materials easily accessed at the common hardware store, this mode of display speaks to the cyclical nature of Nolan’s constructions, in that, they too recontextualize waste (the often-discarded exterior packaging of things) within “the magical sensation of smallness” (Rose Nolan) and the reverence of world building.
"The starting point for these working models is the potential in the found materials that I've collected and held on to for a long time in my studio, awaiting an opportunity. They playfully engage with the language and vision of contemporary architecture, channeling an amalgamation of shapes and forms to replicate in each model. The transformation is in the homemade and handmade, in their domestic scale, in the hint of a self-portrait. They continue my interest in using shifting scale as a strategy within my work - from the intimate to the monumental - and everything that comes with that. On this occasion, the magical sensation of smallness, onto which the viewer's eye falls, is important." - Rose Nolan 2023
Rose Nolan works across painting, installation, sculpture, photography, prints and book production. Her practice regularly oscillates between the intimate and the monumental, often informed by a strong interest in architecture, interior and graphic design – combining formal concerns with the legacies of modernism. Nolan’s practice is known for its attention to the formal and linguistic qualities of words, using language to transform architectural space. By making language concrete, meaning is asserted.
Nolan typically employs a radically reduced palette of red and white, and simple utilitarian materials and methods, in an exploration of personal, playful and often self-effacing narratives. Each work describes a con- cern for economy; a desire to be responsive to site; an interest in seriality and repetition; and the importance of language, interactivity, and the experience of the viewer.
Nolan’s works are held in important public collections, including: the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; and Monash University Museum of Art.
Public collections include: NGA Canberra; NGV, Melbourne; AGNSW, Sydney; AGSA, Adelaide; MCA, Syd- ney; Heide MOMA, Melbourne; and Monash University Museum of Art.
Urban art commissions include ‘Screen Works – ENOUGH-NOW/EVEN/MORE-SO’, Queen Victoria Market, City of Melbourne (2021); ‘GIVE OR TAKE’, Monash University Library Caulfield Cam- pus (2017); ‘A Big Word – HELLO’ (The Hello House in collaboration with OOF! Architecture), Melbourne (2014); ‘It’s Okay to Be Alright’, Melbourne Art Trams (2013) and ‘It’s Hard to See What This All Means’, Site One, Docklands, Melbourne (2006).
