A collection of Honeywill's work spanning nine years and multiple mediums explores how history, culture and architecture impact on the human condition. By Lorenzo Logi.

Photography: Earl Carter

Honeywill’s first experiences of creating art came at a young age, growing up with an artist father and accompanying him on his expeditions to Port Adelaide or the Port River. “My treat as a small child was to use the paint left on the palette when my father had finished”, she comments, “that kind of natural relationship both as an observer and ‘experimenter’ breeds a confidence in one’s ability to make art”. 

To look at the moon

From there Honeywill’s artistic career took her to the South Australian School of Art, through acting, set design and creating performative works, and landed her at the Adelaide Festival of Arts, where she made first contact with the  Fluxus movement. There, in the company of artists such as Charlotte Mormon  John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Nam June Paik, Honeywill “became excited about the fluid crossing of boundaries in the arts and the limitless horizon of possibility that Fluxus opened up”. 

Mothership (aberration)

Honewyill’s 2007 survey show Against the Grain in many ways preludes IN-Grained, drawing heavily on her work with wood and inspired by the timber frames of domestic homes. This architectural theme and material focus is sustained in IN-Grained, and elevated by Honeywill’s collaboration with architect Peta Heffernan, who is also curator for the show. As Honeywill explains, “IN-Grained is essentially a conversation between the viewer, the curator and myself …. Peta has designed the exhibition layout to emphasise the difference between private space and public space; to create for the viewer a journey through the space that echoes the movement through a domestic house.”

Elysium

The artist singles out Untitled/Colours of the Kitchen Cabinet (2003-2012) as her favourite piece in the exhibition; the artwork consists of the padded front section of an old kitchen cabinet that has had text from Honeywill’s archive of shopping lists written across its face on a transparent material. The concept is further developed via a collaboration with LA based singer and composer, Moira Smiley, who with her group VOCO have vocalized the text. This auditory component has in turn been incorporated into the piece by having it emanate from deep within the cabinet, and is triggered by a sensor. 

Untitled (Colours of the Kitchen Cabinet) 

Carpet

IN-Grained: works in wood (exposed and disguised) 2003-2012 will be on display at Carnegie Gallery, Hobart, from 13 July – 12 August, 2012.

Carnegie Gallery

Greer Honeywill