John Graham, who’s a Kombumerri man of the Yugambeh people, will give a ‘Well Come’ To Country
The Artist in Residence mezzanine studio will be open as part of this exhibition
Exhibition continues until 17 June

What does a paradigmatic shift look, feel, or sound like? This exhibition proposes the next iteration of interdisciplinary experiments from Michelle Xen as she translates the shift from touring musician back into the contemporary gallery space. Within the fissures of Michelle Xen’s practice, sound, object, saturated colour and environmental immersion are crushed together to form a new, highly compressed system of experimental engagements with sensory data. This system attempts to grasp the mechanics and necessities of multiple lines of flight, both internally and externally. During her residency at The Walls, Xen has developed a dialogic approach to making objects, stemming from her art-into-pop-into-art methodology and enquiry into technology. A use of torrid colour, recycled acrylic materials, geometric modularity and fluid motion forms a basic structure for understanding the shifting immersivity of spectatorial experience, from music to the gallery space.

As part of the exhibition, Michelle Xen will launch TRANSLATING.EARTH, a collaboration with the Lumen Cloud collective.  TRANSLATING.EARTH is founded in the idea of shifting the voice of the artist to the voice of the natural environment: the emphasis on the creative impulse from the human body, is shifted to natural systems and the types of communications they may make. During this critical period in our cultural and environmental history, TRANSLATING.EARTH seeks to develop another voice – a type of language – through which the natural environment can communicate IRL. During the residency Xen worked with Lumen Cloud collaborators Richard Candy and Mat Johnson. Together they have built a language of animated colour within a sculptural form, relaying the captured data from the wave motion of the Coral Sea fringing the Gold Coast. This installation offers the first iteration of TRANSLATING.EARTH, an ongoing project for Xen and Lumen Cloud.

Michelle lives in Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast and is a graduate of the Queensland College of Art, holding a Bachelor of Visual Art in Fine Arts, and a Master of Arts in Research in interdisciplinary practice from the Queensland University of Technology. Her interdisciplinary practice oscillates between visual art, pop music, and the boundaries of performance. Her body of works sit within a spectrum from the contemporary visual art world, the independent music industry, to a range of hybrid spaces associated with contemporary experimental sound and performance.

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BENEVOLENT SYSTEM II | TRANSLATING.EARTH LAUNCH is supported by the Regional Arts Development Fund. The Regional Arts Development Fund is a Queensland Government and City of Gold Coast Council partnership to support local arts and culture.