Surrender | Joshua Yeldham
In Joshua Yeldham's first work of literature, stories of devotion interweave with visual musings to result in a compelling journal.
Reading Surrender is like being invited into Yeldham’s stream of consciousness, infused with stories of family, his travels throughout Australia and the places that continue to inspire his practice.
Flicking through the pages, Yeldham invites the reader into a visual telling of his life journey from the pains of boarding school, to the Rhode Island School of Design and later his revels in Venezuela and an odyssey into the Australian outback in a beat-up old combie.
Originally produced alongside his survey exhibition Surrender at the Manly Art Gallery & Museum in 2014, it is a product of Yeldham’s lifelong passage in his art practice. More journal than catalogue or autobiography, Surrender bursts with Yeldham’s energy as he scribbles poems and sketches over photographs of the Hawkesbury, pictures of his youth and his daughter and wife.
There is something manic that emerges in Yeldham’s intensive creating – drawing patterns and designs on trees and rocks – as if making his own mark and adding to the layered stories and myths that are embedded in the Australian landscape.
Everything about Surrender is personal and intimate, from his poems written to his family, to pictures of youth in the Hawkesbury river where Yeldham grew up. Whilst some might this find honesty this exposing, Yeldham’s unfiltered telling is refreshing, sweeping the reader into his excitement and zest for his life and practice. Symbiotic, you cannot understand one without the other.
The graphic intensity and playful forms of Yeldham’s work evokes an exploration of nature, with his abstract landscapes and figurative works suffused with narrative and myth.
Surrender is a meaningful telling of Joshua Yeldham, and is a must read for any creative wanderer.
Surrender by Joshua Yeldham is published by Picador Australia, $49.99
To commemorate fifty years since the invasion, Savvas travelled to Cyprus to video her walk from her mother’s home in Kaimakli, Nicosia, to her father’s...
National museums serve as custodians of collective memory. They preserve, interpret, and present stories that shape a nation’s cultural identity. The National Museum of Australia...
The two-and-a half-kilogram catalogue for the Dangerously Modern exhibition, set inside its pink, gossamer carry bag, is the perfect metaphor for this exhibition at the...
As an Italian immigrant, who came to Australia as a young boy, Zofrea’s understanding and connection with the Australian landscape has been a lifelong journey....
For a short time in the early seventies, boring old Sydney Town had a place to go that fitted Bruce’s vision. After living and successfully...
The Wama Foundation has nurtured significant momentum for its ambitious NCEA project over the past decade. In 2015 the foundation engaged Jan van Schaik, co-founder...
At his Leichhardt studio, Mason Kimber shows me a cache of photographs taken of a Perth nightclub, owned by Kimber’s father, in the 1980s and...
Through a complex and nuanced investigation of movement and time, the photographic work of U.S. still-and-moving image artist Sam Contis, seductively unfolds across distinct landscapes....
The year 2024 is a special year as Australia somewhat confidently readies for the approaching Olympic Games in Paris. The national society feels it has...