Marie McMahon

All things fall and are built again

Exhibition dates: Wed 12 March to Sat 29 March, 2008
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Print CV

I know he felt leaves, flowers, grass, small animals and the motionless objects of his home with those interpreting windows until he had built up a Babylonian library of shape memories.
Thea Astley The Acolyte

It began with the building of a tower, cube section on cube section, eighteen sections to the ground, a driver's cabin lifted to the top, and an 'A'-frame added above it. Then the rotating jib and counter jib were joined at the base of the A-frame. Counter weights were lifted into the counter jib, and finally, cables triangulated the jib and A-frame. In the same way that friendship often comes through a chance meeting, my decision to draw the Hammerhead crane began with a passing observation of it's assembly.

As a proportion, the 'golden section' predates the geometric ordering of Baroque building plans. In the age of the European Baroque, people believed in a hierarchy of number and form, where 'rational' or 'effable' shapes and numbers could 'speak' and be expressed, and were part of a divine geometric order: the architecture of the cosmos. Cubes represented the most rational, effable beauty. Ineffable shapes and numbers were avoided - unless they contributed to the beauties of distortion. Number and shape magic (geomancy) and number and shape games (geometrics) were part of the artists' tools of trade. In Baroque music, Pachelbel's Canon in D Major uses 3 voices repeated in 2 sets of 3, each repetition varies and on the 5th repetition the voices overlap: 2, 3, 5.

The Irish poet W.B. Yeats also employed magical working numbers. The 9 rows of beans in The Lake Isle of Innisfree reflect the nine syllables of the next line:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade,

An ordering of elements by number and shape seemed to fit the crane structure - and the A-frame could be seen as a typical Baroque artefact, the steeple.

Marie McMahon

ALL THINGS FALL AND ARE BUILT AGAIN
All things fall and are built again is a line from W. B. Yeat’s 1938 poem Lapis Lazuli. Lapis lazuli is a semiprecious stone valued for its deep blue colour and was treasured by ancient Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations for cosmetics and painting. For centuries lapis lazuli has been prized for jewellery, but it has also been used to make the blue paint ultramarine.

Yeats wrote the poem in 1938 just as World War II was beginning in Europe. There are several intersecting themes in the poem, one of those relating to the value of artistic activity. The poem begins by telling us that “the hysterical women” are disgusted with artists who are always detached, because the times demand some serious action or else they will all be obliterated. As a counterpoint, Yeats then champions the triumph of art and philosophy over the certainty of death. He does this in a number of ways, one being reference to the Shakespearian tragedies of Hamlet and Macbeth.

Similarly, this exhibition extends the theme to include the assembling and crumbling of built structures; from the mechanical crane of a building site at Coogee to the majestic ruins of Angkor Wat.

Compiled and constructed by Jack Frawley

No handiwork of Callimachus
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again
And those that build them again are gay.

Solo Exhibitions
2004	Construction Zone. Helen Maxwell Gallery Canberra
2004	‘Overhead Crane!’ The Depot, Danks St., Sydney
2001	Midden Manly Art Gallery & Museum, Sydney
2000	Australian Seashores Helen Maxwell Gallery, Canberra
1997	In the Company of Birds aGOG, Canberra.
1994	The Heart of Rum Jungle aGOG, Canberra
1992	Still There aGOG, Canberra
1992	Fruitful Places NT Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin.
1991	Woodland Darwin Performing Arts Centre
1991	The Sacred Palm Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney
1990	Songs aGOG Canberra
1989	Bush, Place, Whole World aGOG Canberra
Selected group exhibitions
2007	The Graphic Imperative, International Posters 1965-2005, University Art Gallery, San Diego State University. Dobell Prize for Drawing. AGNSW (finalist) The Story of Australian Printmaking 1801-2005. NGA Canberra. Multiplicity: Prints and Multiples. MCA, Sydney; Tweed River Art Gallery, Murwillumbah; Redland Art Gallery, Qld; Marks and motifs: Prints from the PCA Collection. RMIT Gallery;
2006	The Sound of the Sky, Museum & Art Gallery of the NT, Darwin In your face: contemporary graphic design. Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Marks and motifs: Prints from the PCA Collection. QUT Art Museum; RMIT Gallery, Melbourne (2007)
2005 /6	The Graphic Imperative, International Posters 1965-2005, Massachusetts College of Art and Philadelphia University.
2004	Point and Line to Plane (with Toni Warburton, Fiona MacDonald, Ruth Waller, Patsy Hely etc.) Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney
2002	Celebrating Australia, Identity by Design Powerhouse Museum Centenary of Australia exhibition for the Embassy of Australia, Washington DC, NY, USA
2002	Other Views Griffith University Art Collection, QCA Gallery.
2002	Without Classification: Hazel Hawke. John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University of Technology
2001	Drawing with Toni Warburton, Sue Pedley, Tara Munkanome and Carmel Kantilla, Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney
2001	Windows on Australian Art, the collection of the Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
2000	Federation - Australian Art & Society 1901-2001 National Gallery of Australia.
2000	Australian Identities in Printmaking Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery.
2000	Triptych Helen Maxwell Gallery, Canberra
1996	Which Way Now? NT Centre for Contemporary Art, Darwin; In a Pacific Context aGOG, Canberra.
1995	Review - works by women from the permanent collection AGNSW; Women at Watters: 1964 – 1994 Watters Gallery, Sydney; Territory Picture Show Museum & Art Gallery, NT; Under a Hot Tin Roof - Tin Sheds 1969 – 1994 Tin Sheds Gallery University o f Sydney
1994	Landed National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Contemporary Territory Museum & Art Gallery of the NT
1993	Hearts and Minds State Library of NSW
1992	The Lie of the Land Powerhouse Museum Sydney; The Land - National Heart Foundation Print Folio aGOG Canberra
1991	Sign of the Times Queensland Art Gallery; Fertile Ground Griffith Artspace, Griffith University, Queensland; Melbourne Savage Club Invitation Print Prize Bendigo Art Gallery; At Least It's Gone to a Good Home Tin Sheds Gallery, University of Sydney;
1990	Balance 1990 Queensland Art Gallery.
1989	Prints and Australia, Pre-settlement to Present Australian National Gallery, Canberra; Sets and Series - Recent Australian Prints from the Collection Robert Raynor Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria. Henri Worland Memorial Print Award Warrnambool Art Gallery; Redback Graphix - Now We Are Ten Tin Shed Gallery, University of Sydney
1988	Art and a Shared Belief Exhibition Buildings, Melbourne; Right Here, Right Now - Australia '88 EAF Adelaide and tour; A Changing Relationship - Aboriginal Themes in Australian Art S.H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney; Prints by 25 Australian Artists Australian National Gallery, Canberra.
1987	Celebrity Choice - Sam Neill AGNSW; Shocking Diversity Print Council of Australia touring exhibition; Art / Industry Artspace, Sydney; Redback Graphix Posters Wollongong City Gallery.
Collections
National Gallery of Australia • National Museum of Australia • Art Gallery of NSW • National Gallery of Victoria • Queensland Art Gallery • Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory • State Library of NSW • Powerhouse Museum Sydney • Warrnambool Art Gallery • City of Ballarat Fine Art Gallery • Bendigo Art Gallery • Wagga Wagga City Art Gallery • Griffith University Art Collection • Northern Territory University Collection • Lady Cruthers Collection • Old Parliament House Collection •Kerry Stokes collection
Residencies
1986	Artist in residence - Amalgamated Metal Workers Union NSW.
1983	Artist in residence - Lidcombe Workers Health Centre, Sydney.
1981	Artist in residence - Redback Graphix, Wollongong.
Selected references
Butler R. Australian Prints in the Australian National Gallery National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1985. Butler R. Prints by 25 Australian Artists National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1988. Cochran S. Contemporary Territory Art & Australia, Winter 1995. Cochran S. The Cultural Biography of Plants Artlink, Autumn 1995. Kenyon T., Under a Hot Tin Roof: Tin Sheds 1969-1994 State Library of NSW 1995. Kirby S. Sight Lines Craftsman House, 1992. McQuiston L. Graphic Agitation Phaidon Press, London, 1993. Murray, D. Women’s business by remote, Artlink, Vol 25 No 2, 2005.