Gerry Wedd's Ceramics Brought To Life In Immersive Installation WAVE

Premiering as part of the 2022 Adelaide Film Festival, a genre-defying work of art that unites digital imagery, ceramics and sound will open at the Art Gallery of South Australia on 19 October. In WAVE, Gerry Wedd's mythic imagery is brought to life in an immersive 360-degree installation, accompanied by an evocative soundscape by Gabriella Smart and directed by Wedd, Smart and filmmaker Mark Patterson with digital production by Jumpgate VR.

Comprised of three acts, WAVE invites visitors on an epic journey from sea to sky inspired by a major new ceramic urn created by Wedd - following the tradition of 'narrative pottery' which was used as a form of storytelling in antiquity. The work commences with Wedd's urn spinning like a globe, inviting viewers into a landscape before European invasion, and abundant with life. The second act sees the 'arrival' of a strange new reality, whereby vast urbanisation gives way to bushfires that rage, coastlines that collapse, and waterways that choke. In the final act, a great wave redeems all and renewal begins.

Art Gallery of South Australia Director, Rhana Devenport ONZM says, 'Audiences will be swept along in this experiential and extraordinary work which unexpectedly melds low-tech mediums with digital technology. Bringing Wedd's motifs to life through CGI animation, WAVE offers a powerful commentary about human impact upon the natural world, with a distinctly local visual language that sees harpies meld with black cockatoos and dingoes transform into domesticated dogs.'

Inspired by their local environment, Smart, Wedd and Patterson reside and create on South Australia's Fleurieu Peninsula.

Gerry Wedd commented, 'Ihave lived and surfed on the Fleurieu Peninsula for more than fifty years. For much of my life I have hung around the edge where the water meets the land, and human-made detritus is ever more visible. My concept for WAVE was to subvert the familiar and benign medium of blue and white porcelain to tease out a narrative of climate destruction, plunging viewers into a wondrous world that retains the lustrous look of glaze and the malleable tension of clay.

As someone who normally works in 2D and 3D, WAVE opens up new visual and narrative possibilities for my practice. It is certainly the most collaborative project I have been involved with where each moment is a liaison between myself, composer Gabriella Smart, producer Mark Patterson and Carlo and Anton Andreacchio from Jumpgate VR.'

WAVE will take over Gallery 1 of the Elder Wing of Australian Art in a 360-degree immersive film experienced on a 4-metre high, 7-metre circumference screen. WAVE is on display at AGSA from 19 October 2022 to 8 January 2023, free entry.

ABOUT GERRY WEDD

Gerry Wedd (born 1957) is one of Australia's most celebrated ceramicists. Having studied jewellery, painting, drawing and ceramics, Wedd obtained a Masters in Fine Art from the University of South Australia in 2005. Early on in his career, Wedd became a graphic artist for quintessential Australian design company Mambo who he worked with until 2006.

Wedd has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally, including Havana Biennial, JamFactory, Ian Potter Museum of Art and The Victoria and Albert Museum. He has received numerous awards including the Hobart Art Prize in 2010 and the 1998 Sidney Myer Fund International Ceramics Award and is represented in public collections around the country including the Art Gallery of South Australia, Powerhouse Museum - Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Shepparton Art Museum and Queensland University of Technology.

ABOUT GABRIELLA SMART

Gabriella Smart's art practice embraces piano performance, improvisation, composition, education, commissioning and curation. She is a leading advocate of new music in Australia, with sustained contribution over 30 years, and is Artistic Director and founder of Soundstream, established in 1993. Her expertise and leadership as an Australian representative artist has been recognised with numerous awards and grants, including a Helpmann Award, Churchill Fellowship, Prelude Composer Residency and APRA AMCOS 2019 Award for Excellence by an Individual.

As a composer Gabriella has been commissioned by the Australian Dance Theatre, the Art Gallery of South Australia, ABC Classic, Perth Festival and Art Zoyd (France). As an improviser Gabriella has collaborated with Lisa Gerrard, Brian Ritchie, Cat Hope and Paul Grabowsky. She has performed extensively in Australia (Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide International Festivals, MOFO and TURA), and internationally, premiered over eighty new works for solo piano in Europe and China.

ABOUT Mark Patterson

Mark Patterson has produced feature films set in Australia, China, India, France and Hawaii as well as documentary series and one-off programs and VR art works. He had a long standing relationship with director Paul Cox having produced his last feature film Force Of Destiny (2015), the feature documentary Kalaupapa Heaven (2007), the ABC biopic The Remarkable Mr Kaye (2006) and features Human Touch (2004) and the box office and festival hit Innocence (2000) He produced Race to London (2012), a six part documentary series for ABC 1 following three Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls with director Kay Pavlou, and the first official Australian/Chinese co-production Dragon Pearl (2010) with director Mario Andreacchio. Mark was one of the producers on the feature film Cargo (2017) starring Martin Freeman.

In 2021 Mark produced Square Circles, a VR artwork with Indigenous musician William Barton and the Australian String Quartet. Between 2014-2021, Mark has been the Executive Producer for the new music organisation Soundstream.

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