Portholes - Nikala Bourke, artist website, Tasmania, Australia.

Works in Progress Show at Plimsoll, July 2017.

This exhibition presented works in progress by students developing practice-based research projects in the Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours at the University of Tasmania, College of the Arts. They were exhibited within A2 light boxes and had sound pieces featuring slowed-down watery drips and drops via headphones.

This intimacy of liquid sound added another layer of sensual connection with water to evoke its energy and motion. Water is fortuitous and unpredictable. Each print and sound piece is unique, spontaneous and one of a kind.

Porthole 1, scanned water photogram detail, 2017.

Porthole 2, scanned water photogram detail, 2017.

Porthole 3, scanned water photogram detail, 2017.

Porthole 4, scanned water photogram detail, 2017.

Porthole 5, scanned water photogram detail, 2017.

Porthole 6, scanned water photogram detail, 2017.

Porthole 8, scanned water photogram detail, 2017.

Porthole 7, scanned water photogram detail, 2017.

Porthole 9, scanned water photogram detail, 2017.

Installation shot, portholes in A2 lightboxes, sound component of water playing in ear phones.

Installation shot, portholes in A2 lightboxes.

Works in Progress Show at Plimsoll, July 2017.

Artist Statement: When we look at a body of water, we see the surface, but what lies beneath? There is an element of intrigue, reverence and the unknown. These works are preliminary pieces associated with my Honours project which celebrates water and the emotional and cathartic pull that arises when we consider and experience its materiality. It is a provocative and symbolic element that we connect with in both an intellectual and sensual manner, perhaps because our own bodily fluid composition is seventy percent.

Water based photograms are unique captures that expose and reveal the turbulence, stability and chaos of water, emerging like a landscape out of a flat field of paper. These photograms have been digitally manipulated and back lit to closely reveal the detail and complexity of water and its enigmatic nature.