Stockroom Kyneton, gallery 2
01 August / 01 November 2020

JOSHUA COCKING
Ghost Plant

Joshua Cocking’s work has long been about the clash of culture and nature and the displacement that can occur when these two forces collide. Objects both figurative and landscape are removed from their surroundings, yet the presence of those surroundings remain in surface reflection. Objects that bring with them their own history, a type of cultural and environmental residue. This clash often brings violence, foreign influence, invasive species, desolation of culture, homogenisation of ecology, or put simply in this body of work, a tropical nightmare.

From a ‘lucky country’ lexicon, we find it uncomfortable to talk about these issues of racial, cultural and environmental destruction. A ‘you beaut, she’ll be right’ approach to negative inherited history and difficult critical discourse.  Inflatable pool toys are used in these works to subvert the seriousness of such issues.

This work has been informed by Cocking’s time living and working in and around remote indigenous communities in the Kimberley region of north Western Australia over the last 13 years. Experiences that continue to influence his understanding Australia’s colonial canon and our countries future trajectory.

The principal motivation behind the work and practise of artist Joshua Cocking is a focus on humanist, environmental and technological issues. "Cockings work comes to us as a cautionary tale at the eleventh hour. Seductively and compellingly symbolic, each painting is an urgent, yet deeply encoded disclosure about the precipices we stand on: environmental, social, economic and cultural. Lyrical, fragmentary titles give glimpses of larger narratives, all of it beautiful, all of it aching with potential catastrophe." Dr. Sheridan Hart Phd.

Currently based in Western Australia, Cocking has won multiple prize awards including The Paddington Art Prize, The Black Swan Prize for Portraiture, The Cossack Art Prize, The West Kimberley Art Prize, the Shinju Matsuri Art Prize (2018, 2017, 2011), The Hedland Art Prize, The Lethbridge Art Prize and the Midwest Art Prize. He has also held residencies at the Fremantle Art Centre, Fremantle and Cossack, Western Australia.

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