Deborah Kelly | Bodies of Work

The first time that Kelly’s works have been showcased in such an extensive format, the result is a cohesive understanding of the unyielding practice of Kelly to explore and question issues of gender, power and privilege.

To give you an insight into the fuel beneath the fire, below is an extract from Kelly’s artist statement about the series No Human Being is Illegal (in All Our Glory) from 2014.

“I’m a very lucky artist. I didn’t go to art school, so I haven’t learnt the limits of what art can do, or how, or with whom.

I’m having a moment. Of course, like every artist, every woman, every human being, I’m beset by fears, insecurities, ego frailty, arrogance, unhinged certainties and paralysing indecision. Making art in and of the world is a way to slow chaos, to choose a path and merely step down it, to learn to be steadfast, to adhere to some conjured order. However far-fetched or fanciful.

The moment means a microphone, a megaphone, a platform in Penrith! How to accept with grace this grave responsibility? Although I’m trying to stop, I keep making artefacts, objects with histories and futures and hoped-for purchase on the present. Our era, when and why we’re here, in this pretty pickle.

The work I am so privileged to present to you here is the labour of many hearts, heads and hands; my magnificent collaborators, subjects, technicians, participants and assistants. Their names are with the works. Say them aloud!”

Created originally for the 19^th Biennale of Sydney, No Human Being is Illegal (in All Our Glory) is comprised of twenty life-sized photographic portraits of people, taken as nudes and then collaged by a group of volunteers, inspired by a personal self-description by the subject and their interests. The collage elements were carefully hand-cut from Deborah Kelly’s own collection of books, creating a collaborative process between Kelly, the volunteers and the individual nudes. The imagery entwines all that were involved in a form of social exchange, acceptance and celebration of individuality.

One of the major pieces in the exhibition, No Human Being is Illegal (in All Our Glory) represents the appeal of collage to Kelly, who is attracted to the slow, real time process of hand collaging – a kind of analogue island in an increasingly digitalised and fast-paced world.

Deborah Kelly | Bodies of Work is on show for the duration of Summer, there will be a rehang in January in an attempt to showcase as much of Kelly’s prolific practice as possible!

EXHIBITION
Deborah Kelly | Bodies of Work
Until 21 February 2016
Penrith Regional Gallery 

Image: Deborah Kelly & collaborators, No Human Being Is Illegal (in all our glory) (detail), 2014, pigment ink print on Hahnemühle papers bonded to aluminium, with collage from books and found materials, glue and UV protective varnishes, 200 × 109 cm. Portrait Photographer: Sebastian Kriete. Created for the 19th Biennale of Sydney.

Courtesy the artist and Penrith Regional Gallery