Beings: exhibition at Humble House Gallery in Canberra

Human-animal relations in an Australian context are explored in figurative painting and ceramic figures in this collaborative exhibition (painter Debbie van Heekeren and Anna-Karina Hermkens). The artists create Beings born of the interconnection between human, animal, and earth. They suggest some alternative modes of being-with-the-world. The recent NSW drought is the starting point for understanding the interconnectedness that is fundamental to many indigenous traditions and the care that this knowledge elicits. Hermkens' ceramic figures challenge representations of female bodies, while her vessels and their abstract and figurative designs refer to the social and ritual significance of vessels and how women embody vessel-like qualities as bearers and carers of life. Van Heekeren’s paintings speak to the tragedy of landscape in the face of neglect, and misuse. They depict figures that are neither male nor female, human or animal, but a form that evokes the shared habitation evident in careful farming.

Nov 19 - Dec 6, 2020, Humble House gallery, Canberra.