Stockroom Kyneton, gallery three
02 April / 08 May 2022
TALITHA KENNEDY
Tender Sticks
Working with black leather for over a decade, Talitha Kennedy takes to heart the significance of using industrialised cow skin as materiality with conceptual intent. These soft sculptures of plant forms are uncanny taxidermy trophies to the wonder of nature as shadowed by human domination.
Soft and fleshy to the touch, the works tempt to be held with an intimacy in contrast to ouchy real sticks and perceived fears of non-human wildness. Twigs and other castoff limbs of trees become litter, maybe acknowledged for a time before being consumed to entropy. Their organic shape speaks of the will to grow while succumbing to decay. Hand-stitching and crafting these natural forms into bodily corporality is in tenderness to the transience of being and sensitive to the dark side of the human relationship with the natural world.
Talitha Kennedy works in black leather to embody the relationship between humans and the natural world. She has exhibited sculptures and drawings in solo shows in Melbourne, Sydney, Darwin and Townsville. She has exhibited in curated exhibitions including Legacy: Reflections on Mabo touring nationally (2019-2021), Fecund: Fertile Worlds toured by Artback NT (2018-2019), As long as the night is dark at Wagga Wagga Art Gallery and MARS Gallery (2017), and Not Fair (2014).
