“My images don’t have a bar code, from time to time they scream. Today is the first day of peace though,” Nevereux notes in her Preview to Out of Here Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, an exhibition of her work now on display at , curated by Dido Haas. An evocative artist whom I’ve admired through these pages on a number of occasions, Nevereux offers sixteen images which, as show notes in a mere general introduction to the exhibition, form something of a reflective, emotional journey.
“Out of here is despair converted into media with intrinsic meaning and no pretenses,” she sates, “… it’s a spiritual thing, the individual perception of feelings after breakup. We seek in our beliefs sensory encounters, something beyond the words uttered. The words may reverberate subtlety, but the raw feelings, truth, irony and an imaginative point of view wrestle us each moment to create image after image.”
And so we are presented with images of raw emotional depth, each one presenting not a narrative or idea, but a feeling; a response; a desire. All but one are really presented as standalone moments; flashes of an emotional state, a state with which, in all likelihood we can each identify. The exception is Adieux. Beta version, seen at the end of this piece, which conveys emotions through words as well as by image.
Love and loss obviously result in darker feelings – emptiness, loneliness, despair, hurt, and so on. This is certainly the case with the majority of the pieces offered here – but that shouldn’t be taken to mean these are in any way bleak images. Entirely the reverse, in fact. As noted above, these are images that are powerfully and evocatively familiar in their interpretation; so much so that rather than sinking us into bleaker thoughts, they offer a journey – possibly cathartic – through feelings and responses. Some may even offer more than one potential interpretation.
Take Every Song Is A Lament (above, left), for example. Clearly, the title reflects how songs can feel to us when a relationship ends; that sense of loss, not just of love and companionship – but also a of oneself. This is beautifully framed by the image itself – a body partially dissolved into a trail of feathers leading to an escaping bird. But so to, is there an alternative here: that need to escape; a wish not to feel the hurt and upset evoked by song, and to simply escape.
Similarly, and alongside of Every Song Is A Lament, is Going from Belonging 2 B Longing. Again, the title and the image perfectly convey the idea that there comes a time when a relationship ends – for whatever reason – when we a deeply aware of that shift in state: for a couple (or family) or an individual; we feel more a shadow than a presence. But again, perhaps, there is an alternative metaphor here: when a relationship ends, we are often surrounded by support; and as well-meaning as that support might be, we nevertheless feel apart from it, rather than a part of it. We simply want to fade away and escape it all.
An open display of images reflecting inner thoughts and feelings, Out of Here is an expressive exhibition, one not to be missed.
SLurl Details
- Nitroglobus Roof Gallery (Sunshine Homestead, rated: Moderate)
