Irene Manion

1. SHADOWS

2014 Barometer Gallery

The starting point for this installation was a number of perforated glass goblets that were filled with black ink and videod/photographed as the ink bled out onto paper contour maps of the large coal mining areas of the Hunter Valley.NSW.

Photographs of the maps were then digitally manipulated and mirrored in repeat patterns that resembled Rorschach ink blots. The panels were 1.5 metres in length.

2. THE BUTTERFLY COLLECTION PROJECT

ongoing

A series of transparent Perspex panels, each one devoted to an Australian butterfly species.

Victorian collectors of insects, pinned their specimens in orderly grids in display boxes.

This installation 'collection' references this 19th Century domestic practice, as well as the related extensive collections of insects in natural history museums around the world, which classify, identify and preserve them for research and documentation of biodiversity.

Various factors such as climate events (droughts and floods), farming practice : the widespread use of pesticides, loss of habitat etc interfere with their chances of survival. The light shining through each panel, creates shadows highlighting their insubstantiality, transience and fragility.

The final installation of this work will see the series of butterfly panels hung as a semi transparent wall screen.