Rooted complexity : Kerrie Taylor

“Rooted complexity” is Kerrie Taylor’s first solo contemporary art exhibition - in “the boxset” at Northern Centre for Contemporary Art, Vimy Lane, Parap.

The show opens Friday 1st September at 6pm and runs till the 23 September. The exhibition will be open during NCCA’s normal hours.

Kerrie won the Charles Darwin University inaugural 2016 “Fledgling” student printmaking award. She was invited to present this solo exhibition as part of the winner’s prize.

Kerrie’s practice employs layered imagery, mostly using various printmaking techniques. The multi-laying is reformed and reconfigured in a conceptual and literal sense to produce the 3 dimensional installations which depict the mangrove world.

Kerrie has exhibited in many exhibitions both in Darwin and interstate, receiving a number of Awards. She has also organized art exhibitions and major festivals.  Kerrie is about to commence her Masters in Visual Arts at Charles Darwin University.

Kerrie is also participating in a group exhibition at Tactile Arts, opening 23 September.

Some background to the exhibition

Kerrie lived and worked on Bathurst Island over a period of two and a half years. This was a significant time, being surrounded and immersed in another culture with a rich and extensive exposure to another world.

This special time awakened a cultural exploration, spirituality and love for the environment, being exposed to deep Indigenous cultural knowledge. The impetus to Kerrie’s  fascination of the mangrove world initially involved an outing with a Tiwi elder who was teaching his grandson and Kerrie to find mud muscles. The Tiwi elder easily located 10 mud muscles, the young boy found 3 and Kerrie was not able to find any muscles immersed in the mud.

This experience has had a substantial influence on Kerrie’s art, challenging the notion that things are never as they appear. My quest is to reveal the hidden, to explore the elements which compose the hidden, and to elucidate the mystery of inner knowledge.

Kerrie is intrigued with the multitude of hidden elements living in the mangrove system supporting an array of life such as long bums, mud muscles, mangrove worm, crabs, mud skippers as well as small fish.  Kerrie seeks to understand more about the ecology of mangroves in order to create informed and multilayered images both in a conceptual, artistic and literal sense. The Tiwi led excursion highlighted the natural mangrove world as a cultural awakening.

Kerrie is fortunate to have been taught by an aboriginal elder: to observe the mangroves to appreciate the systems and interconnectedness which inform a Tiwi sensibility of understanding.  The excursion lead by a Tiwi elder continues to inspire Kerrie’s art and deepens the allure and investigation of the mangrove world.