SKYE WAGNER

OPACITY SHIFT

The photographs in Opacity Shift explore the circulation and digital malleability of contemporary images. Constructed from physical objects and printed imagery, they assemble vernacular photographic tropes, commodity goods, and cultural fragments.

The source images and objects are released from their prescribed function and become part of an unruly network that moves throughout works in the exhibition. Animals, food, body parts and consumer products all form incongruous relations that confuse perspectives, materials and normative codes. In this mix, things appear out of control, on the verge of becoming something else, and wanting to escape the confines of the frame.

Digital post-production techniques, such as duplicating and liquefying, are acted out with the physical materials transposing software processes into physical space. These system-shifting tactics of rephotographing photographs and translating digital processes, model how visibilities and representations can be destabilised, altered and reconstructed.

UNSW GALLERIES

21 MAR - 18 APR 2020

guinea pig, sticky notes, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 41 x 30 cm

golden chalice, egg yolk, seashells, 2020, framed pigment print on Ilford Fibre paper, 82 x 61 cm

blue tarp, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 39 x 29 cm

pink soap, apple stitch, puppy eyes, 2020, framed pigment print on Ilford Fibre paper, 86.5 x 65 cm

chilli pairs, chrome pipe, stress ball, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 49 x 36 cm

sticky sand, matchstick, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 30 x 20 cm

blue check, wilted radishes, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 20 x 15 cm

rhino glove, elbow joint, corn cakes, 2020, framed pigment print on Ilford Fibre paper, 93.5 x 70 cm

folded crackers, woven cane, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 18 x 23 cm

beige trousers, bread slice, neck brace, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 66 x 48 cm

flamingo smile, bandaids, breadsticks, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 49 x 37 cm

cream zipper, red delicious, shuttlecock, 2020, framed pigment print on Ilford Fibre paper, 62 x 47 cm

black grid, dusty tape, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 34 x 26 cm

breadsticks, cream stripes, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 31 x 23 cm

cream stripes, breadsticks, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 31 x 23 cm

red apples, sport shorts, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 39 x 29 cm

bucket spill, baseball, stone hand, 2020, pigment print mounted on alupanel, 67 x 55 cm

fake lashes, shin bone, marble touch, 2020, framed pigment print on Ilford Fibre paper, 62 x 47 cm

Installation view, Opacity Shift, 2020, UNSW Galleries. Image: Document Photography. Courtesy UNSW Galleries.

Installation view, Opacity Shift, 2020, UNSW Galleries. Image: Document Photography. Courtesy UNSW Galleries.

Installation view, Opacity Shift, 2020, UNSW Galleries. Image: Document Photography. Courtesy UNSW Galleries.

NOT SET

Not Set is a two-person exhibition with Alia Parker and myself. Our exhibition collaboration established a dialogue between our practices through the use of photographic and textile forms respectively. The works within this show glean ubiquitous materials and generic tropes in playful ways to disturb the social and cultural assumptions of function and value. The title Not Set refers to relational assemblages that the practitioners created with an emphasis on forms that are open, unstable, ready to change, grow or possibly collapse.

Wellington Street Projects 2018

NOT SET invite image

Peach, 2018, pigment print on aluminium, 88 x 117cm

Green Apple, 2018, pigment print on aluminium, 88 x 177cm

Orange Nail, 2018, pigment print on aluminium, 26 x 41 cm

Onion Skin, 2018 Pigment print on aluminium, 44 x 65 cm

Cream, 2018, pigment print on aluminium, 28 x 23 cm

Blue Pen, 2018, pigment print on aluminium, 24 x 33 cm

Splash, 2018, pigment print on aluminium, 39 x 45 cm

Spill, 2018, pigment print on aluminium, 40 x 53 cm

Installation view, Skye Wagner Peach, 88 x 117cm, Green Apple, 88 x 117cm, Orange Nail, 26 x 41 cm, pigment prints mounted on aluminium. Photo: Docqment

Installation view, works left to right, Skye Wagner Green Apple 88 x 117cm, Orange Nail 26 x 41 cm, Alia Parker Tiny Socks for Long Legs, Cotton and mushroom mycelium. Skye Wagner, Blue Pen 24 x 33 cm, Splash 39 x 45cm, Spill 40 x 53 cm Pigment prints mounted on aluminium, Alia Parker High Cap for Many Heads, Cotton and mushroom mycelium. Photo: Docqment

Alia Parker Tiny Socks for Long Legs, Cotton and mushroom mycelium. Skye Wagner Blue Pen 24 x 33 cm, Splash 39 x 45cm, Spill 40 x 53 cm pigment prints mounted on aluminium, Alia Parker High Cap for Many Heads, Cotton and mushroom mycelium. Photo: Docqment

Installation view, work left to right, Alia Parker Body Wide, Body Drop, Cotton, mushroom mycelium and sand, 158 x 37 cm, Skye Wagner Onion Skin, Pigment print on aluminium, 44 x 65 cm. Photo: Docqment

WORKING TITLE

Working Title took a self-reflexive approach to the production of an ‘exhibition.’ Alia Parker and I set up a working studio within the gallery which was occupied for the duration of the show in the form of a performative laboratory. A thin rectangular veil structure contained the two of us, was lit internally, illuminating, creating at once an obstruction and a hyper-visibility as the viewer was able to circulate the space and observe but not be clearly seen by us.

The work is a speculative, open-ended inquiry into the processual and iterative nature of perception, ideation and making. It proposes that there isn’t endpoint but rather merged process into the form, thereby demystifying the labour, doubt and inherent failures present in art/design production and critique. Throughout the two weeks material sketches, maquettes and photos moved between being work on display and work in process; between the outside gallery walls and the inside the veiled studio. With the aim to establish a slippery relationality between subject, process, object and viewer as a means to speculate on porous states of being and becoming.

AD Space 2018

Working Title invite image

Working Title installation view

DRAG DROP COMPRESS

Drag Drop Compress is an exhibition held at SNO Contemporary Art Projects. Collaborating with artist Melissah Chalker the work is a spatial inquiry that translated digital processes and effects in the gallery. Digital paintbrush gestures and the movement of windows and tabs in screen space are reimagined in this physical context. These gestures and motifs are transposed using paint, prefabricated objects, mock materials and photographs as a means to shift both materiality and dimensionality of the digital.

SNO Contemporary Art Projects 2016

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner, Upside Down Smiley Face (room name), Picture Book Green (left wall), Pinch Me (right wall), acrylic, prefabricated objects, framed c-type prints, lino, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner Picture Book Green, acrylic, prefabricated objects, framed c-type prints, lino, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner, Picture Book Green , installation detail, acrylic, prefabricated objects, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Pinch Me, installation detail, acrylic, prefabricated objects, framed c-type prints, lino, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner, Cute-Cool (room name), acrylic, plastic peach, goggle eyes, mirror, vinyl flooring, c-type photograph, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner, Cute-Cool (room name), installation detail, acrylic, plastic peach, goggle eyes, mirror, c-type photograph, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner, Cute-Cool (room name), installation detail, acrylic, plastic peach, mirror dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Black Diamond, framed pigment print, 42 x 59 cm

REAL FAKE

REAL FAKE charts the uncertain terrain between surface and substance: between material and the representation of material. The works shown use vernacular substances – vinyl, laminated flooring and prefabricated steel which emphasis surface – aspirational, shiny, new. Wood and stone are doubled, domesticated and performed on the surface of composite materials.

Playing with modes of domestic display, wall and floor works speculate – re-modelling familiar surfaces, platforms and spaces. But rather than the asserting the confidence of belonging, these materials are nervous, awkward and slightly embarrassed – fugitives from the display home.

REAL FAKE

finish/ renovate/ repeat

NEW THING

surface/product/display

FLATPACK

cheap/plastic/imitation

BUY

reconstitute/prefabricate

ASSEMBLE

material/matter/measure

ACT

finish/ renovate/ repeat

Melissah Chalker

Skye Wagner

Articulate Project Space 2016

REAL FAKE invite Image

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner, REAL FAKE installation view, UNIT 1 and UNIT 2 vinyl flooring, laminated flooring, EZ-TAC photographic print on honeycomb board, prefabricated steel, fake fruit, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner, UNIT 1, installation detail, laminated flooring, EZ-TAC photographic print on honeycomb board, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner, UNIT 2, installation detail, vinyl flooring, prefabricated steel, fake fruit, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner, UNIT 2 , installation detail, vinyl flooring, prefabricated steel, fake fruit, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

Melissah Chalker and Skye Wagner, UNIT 2, installation detail, vinyl flooring, prefabricated steel, fake fruit, dimensions variable. Photo: Docqment

FLEX

How does it feel in your shoulders right now? This is what an app on my phone asks me every day at 3.45pm, a reminder that I find continually surprising in the intimacy it assumes, I programmed the app to do it, but it appears in a form similar to a text message. This digitally embodied self is at once a stranger and a companion reminding me to stop tensing my shoulders.

Pinch Slide Double Tap

FLEX explores the relationships between physicality and intimacy in the digital age. Each work in the show is an action; all but one will be mediated through either video or photography. These actions include – blowing bubbles, making camouflage and getting inanimate objects to do physical acts. One work is a series of images/attempts to get a rubber band to levitate. Another work is a video of a cup emptying and a screen-filling with bubbles played on a monitor covered in bubble wrap. The sound of the bubbles and breath is the sound of the exhibition. The other video work has no sound and is a corrupted scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds. Dividing the gallery space is a tread that is attached to one wall and stretches across the gallery space; tied to the end of the tread is a pin that is suspended curiously mid-air an inch away from a magnet.

Flex Exfoliate and Exhale

Responding to how technology affects our perception of and relationship to our body and the bodies of others. These gestures present absurd, vulnerable and uncanny aspects of living with technology today.

Firstdraft 2014

Band-Aid, pigment print on aluminium, 48 x 32cm

Toothbrush and Toothpaste, pigment print on aluminium, 48 x 32cm

Stretch, thread, pin, neodymium magnet, dimensions variable

Interrupting Hitch, single channel video, ipad

Interrupting Hitch, single channel video, video still

Bubbles, single channel video, TV, bubble wrap, dimension variable

Bubbles, single channel video, video still

32 attempt to levitate, spiral bound book

32 attempt to levitate

114 photos sticky taped to my body, framed c-type prints, 32 x 48cm

Toothbrush and Toothpaste, inkjets prints 48 x 32cm, Band-Aid, inkjet prints, 48 x 32cm

FLEX installation view, photo: Zan Wimberley.

GLOSSOLALIA

Glossolalia explores how truth and fiction can be visualised, imagined, experienced and confused. The still images exhibited are dissections from low resolution video footage of people in rapture states and the video is family footage from an interactive special effects’ exhibition held at the Powerhouse Museum in the mid 1990.

Kudos Gallery 2012