By Necessity curated by Meredith Turnbull across galleries Alta Forma and Daine Singer examines how the gestures of making are guided by principles of necessity including: a direct relationship to the body and the body in space; with humour, memory and politics through image making; with repurposing, world building and ideas of sustainability.
This dress is printed with one of my paintings through a reactive dye process , folded and shaped to drape over my studio chair. The lighting of this assemblage references Leondardo da Vinci’s Annunciation (1472c) and my recent writings on ‘Colour and Force’ in the book Artistic Agency. Da Vinci’s Annunciation marks an important development in the history of painting whereby colour is transformed as a distinctive function of light and the modelling of form.
As John Sherman (1962) writes about Colour and Chiaroscuro for da Vinci,
“every form is modelled independently of colour, and every coloured object is invested with a common range of tone”.
The painting on the wall at Alta Forma is made from powders derived from recycled coloured textile waste. I fabricated the paint from the powdered forms of discarded textiles and fabrics shared by colleagues from Deakin at RMIT University . In this work garments become watercolour paints surrounded by shapes of light such that all elements become an active part of the composition on the wall. The shaped lights, colours, forms and materials in both Surface volume ratios at Alta Forma and Ombre Inferential at Daine Singer are my way of relating people, garments and paintings all to each other in an exploration of the modulations of subjectivity and identity
‘By Necessity’, installation view, Daine Singer, installation view, Alta Forma, 2026. Photography: Ross Coulter