Engaging with the perimeters and architecture of the Japan Foundation Gallery, Grove invites you to step directly from the Sydney CBD shopping-mall-food-court into a space of suspended disbelief, a whimsical Japanese fairytale forest.

This installation is inspired by a 10th century fairytale, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, which tells of a kind, old, childless bamboo cutter who found a tiny baby girl in a shining stalk of bamboo. He and his wife raised her as their own and their lives were filled with joy as she grew into young woman of ordinary size and extraordinary beauty. But then the sight of the full moon began to overwhelm her with sadness and she confessed that she was not of this world and would soon be compelled to return to her real home on the moon. She was very upset about leaving the life she knew and the adoptive parents she loved, but despite her reluctance the moon people coerced her into donning a celestial feathered robe, which upon touching her shoulders instantly severed all her human emotional attachments, freeing her from the sorrows of the world and transporting her away on a shaft of moonlight. The old bamboo cutter and his wife were consumed by insurmountable grief and soon died of broken hearts.

Although our contemporary expectation of the happily-ever-after fairytale ending is thwarted, this narrative does feature characteristics that are common to fables around the world. Set in a deep dark forest, the key to accessing an enchanted other realm is found hidden within the everyday, in something as inconspicuous and easily overlooked as a stem of bamboo in a bamboo forest, as light as a feather’s touch against the skin or as subtle as pale moonlight.

Grove explores these elements, bridging the everyday and magical possibilities by drawing you towards reflective moonlit windowpanes through grids of bamboo and visceral debris of charcoal and feathers. This installation creates a space that allows contemplation and evokes personal emotions, associations and memories.

About the Artists:

Kath Fries completed her Masters of Visual Art in 2008 at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. She works primarily in temporal site sensitive installations exploring metaphors of interconnection when an element from the everyday is used as a locus linking broader concepts of time and space. Kath exhibits in Sydney and in national sculpture festivals, she was an artist-in-residence at Laughing Waters VIC in 2009 and a nominated emerging artist for the 2007 Redlands Westpac Art Prize. Kath is actively involved in Gaffa Artist-Run-Initiative and is on the Viscopy board.
www.kathfries.blogspot.com

Photo: taken by Anthony Johnson