Frail ari

An essay by Leila Maria Simpson

Founded upon a mutual understanding on the importance of fostering these spaces, Clement Francis Fuentes and I have built our practices as artists alongside each other for years and both deeply value the relationships and closeness that is required to be an artist.

Vanishing Act responds to phenomenological ideas of somatics of the lived body and how experience thrusts us into observing fragments of ourselves. Our working title Motion Sickness (scrapped due to artistic likeness to a Phoebe Bridgers song) largely encapsulates the show- the whiplash between nausea and comfort from existing in dynamic webbed connection with every body around you. 

How we view ourselves from within, and from outside.

In an exploration in the voyeuristic habits of the self, we utilise multiple processes to negotiate the tensions within lived experience. What initially intrigued us to Errol’s Cafe as a site is the fact that it will be closing down- a place so well-loved, ceasing to exist. Errol’s Cafe has been a pivotal part of the North Melbourne community for decades with many regular customers sharing their remorse and reminiscing on stories of the last 20 years.

We wanted to create site-specific works not only to reflect on a coming history, but to celebrate its life and contribution to the community- something we aim to do with our own gallery. In an intimate, almost secretive upstairs space, we’re forced into close proximity with the work, watching as it changes and deteriorates. As a show for one night only, we ask you to reflect on ephemerality, how the passing of time is haunting is deeply beautiful.

Clement and I have always navigated our material processes alongside each other as the ideological core of our practices have great overlap.

Where I’m moving, the work is still. Where he’s still, the work is moving.

Although both practices are extremely process-driven, we both connect with the reflective parts of making most of all. Sagittarius A* was an on-site collaboration that deeply draws from a shared experience in which we constantly grapple with- the endless draw of light into the black hole

This work is Clement and I’s process drawn into one organic place, stripping down years of print and textile craft and unveiling the core of our practice- reflective, meditative, and in the body.

With both practices so deeply rooted in cultural contexts, we work to understand how they fit together; providing texture to flatness and movement to stillness, they can exist separately, yet together they’re symbiotic. As much as one process may seem digital, it is just as much driven by the body. Through a meticulous process, Fuentes allows us a reflective insight into each ingredient poured into sociality. Each frame of a video is removed, remade, and then recycled. Perhaps this process-driven practice is an attempt for Clement to watch, mourn and attempt to remember. Puzzle-pieced ink and colour emit an organic quality, almost of mould or bacteria. The material qualities in each work seem to oppose each other in a beautiful attempt to gain control.

The dynamism of connection — and a lack there of — are dissected through the absences within these works. Clement’s work forces an intimate perspective, in which we are thrust into an amalgamation of body parts and allowed glimpses of objective material. I wait, and then scramble for anything I can hold onto for just a moment, until security is ripped out from under me again. 

It is important to bring art to spaces where it should not belong. Providing ideological and artistic accessibility allows for connection to flourish. In a collaborative battle of light and shadow, Vanishing Act creates a textured experience, toeing the line between fixed and movement – where you are and where you have been. Whilst the work interrogates the nuances of sociality, we will never stop attempting to connect with the nodes in our cosmic web.