SCHUBERT

Melitta Perry

Fable Lands

Official Opening Friday 22 February 2008

"Fable Lands is an enquiry into an alternative inner world ... where imagination creates the landscape, and the landscape is inhabited by forms and characters representative of that which moulds our conscious perceptions.” Melitta Perry 2008

Sydney-born Melitta Perry is an inveterate traveller. From school-holiday car trips with the family to later backpacking adventures through Europe, journeying has provided an abiding interest in cultural diversity and notions of belonging. Between 1997 and 2001, Melitta lived in Wales: its mist-enshrouded mountains, deep cultural traditions and impossible Gaelic road signs nurturing her need to delve beneath the surface of external reality. Years spent amidst landscapes still alive to their ancient myths, have given validity to her childhood instinct for the connective stories which enrich our sense of place and identity.

Melitta Perry now lives and works in the tiny, northern New South Wales township of Mullumbimby. Renowned for the rugged beauty of its volcanic peaks and dense rainforests, this whole region is heir to its own very interesting indigenous and ‘counter-culture’ folklore. Although Perry’s previous exhibitions have been a response to her travels both abroad and in Australia, this current body of work is concerned with journeys into the ‘self’. Musing on the shift in perspective, she offers: “I wonder about the distance between the inner and outer worlds of people. These landscapes are a contemplation of this distance. I have borrowed from literature and lore, playing with context to construct narratives of the unconscious world - a place where the conscious and unconscious might touch.”

The Fable Lands paintings portray a fantastic realm full of secrets, archetypes and buried memories. Obscure paths lead us down to the uncertain habitat of psyche and the absurd. Strange are its vistas - eerily back-lit through scrubby green entrapments, or blanched featureless in a limitless, wan glow. Scumbled, rapid brushwork and the lack of three-dimensionality contrive a slippage between reason and imagination. All attention is directed in towards the dramas being enacted across the picture-planes: “Social interaction has become theatre, each player bringing to the stage a lifetime of collected perceptions.” Typical of the fable genre, the foibles of human nature are described by the characteristics of various creatures. The more familiar snake, sheep and peacock prototypes have been augmented with the likes of a dingo in the guise of a fox; an acquisitive bower bird ogling the blue collar of an inquisitive, large black cat; a rampaging wild boar in a hot pink wig and an affectionate, waltzing crocodile! Such narrative intrigue is further heightened by the symbolism inherent in Perry’s choice of props which include masks, mirrors and a curious collection of vintage bric-a-brac.

The viewer’s unconscious stirs and unbidden, begins to surface - mythic imagery is a powerful trigger! Over millennia, the artists of successive cultures have adopted and adapted the themes of the great myths and fables. Dealing with basic human drives, their stories carry a universal resonance and underline the variety and continuity of human aspiration. As we enlarge the awareness of our primeval heritage, so we add meaning to our contemporary experience.

Born 1969, Melitta Perry originally trained as an architectural illustrator in the Sydney studio of Ambler & Haycraft in the late 80’s and then, “after years of wandering around Europe with a paintbrush and a backpack full of creative enthusiasm” she went on to study painting at Southern Cross University in 1995. Abroad again between 1997 and 2001, Perry lived in Cardiff, Wales where she lectured at the University of Wales (UWIC), exhibited at various festivals and showed successfully with Albany Gallery, Cardiff. Since her return to Australia in 2002 with a beautiful baby daughter, Melitta Perry has been represented by Schubert Contemporary, Main Beach Queensland and the Catherine Asquith Gallery, Melbourne Victoria. She has been a finalist in the Metro 5 Art Award 2005, the Portia Geach Memorial Award 2005, the Border Art Prize 2004 and 2007 and the Country Energy Landscape Award 2007. Melitta Perry currently lives and works in Mullumbimby NSW. Fable Lands is her fourth solo show.

JACQUELINE HOUGHTON