Fireworks is an exhibition about the ongoing forwards-backwards passage of time and the physical remnants of abstract moments in life. We can all hear a far off boom of gunpowder, the smell of chemicals and see colourful arrays of sparks dissolving into languid night skies. It is within this explosive moment Fireworks operates, presenting disparate works that consider the slipperance of existence, consolidating where we have been and romanticising where we may go. 

This curatorial essay is structured in three brief chapters, all about time. The first chapter, ‘here comes the twister,’ takes its title from the outro of Once In A Lifetime by Talking Heads and considers fireworks as a metaphor for the passing of time through milestones. ‘/played’ discusses the friction between the qualification and quantification of time, or, time spent versus time wasted. We conclude with a quick bit of critical writing ‘On Christian Marclay, The Clock (2010)’ in which we think about time as information, compressing and expanding to best suit our environment.

here comes the twister

Once In A Lifetime, the seminal 1980 track by Talking Heads is a study in lifelong disassociation, a twitchy funk-backed sermon about unconsciously going through the motions of the stereotypical suburban fantasy life. The song ends unsettlingly however, with David Byrne uttering the lyrics ‘here a twister comes / here comes the twister,’ a panicked moment that puts into perspective the quiet achievements of a house and a car and a job and a marriage with the imagery of a truly uprooting event. It is a visual so powerful the Cohen Brothers concluded their 2009 film A Serious Man with the exact same moment, either intentionally or incidentally. The ‘twister’ could realistically be anything though, and let us consider it a force of both good and bad; essentially a symbol of dramatic change that delineates a new phase in life.

Fireworks often evoke the heavy humidity of a summer evening, a bell-toll explosion as midnight dawns a new year. For Reina Takeuchi fireworks represent a longing absence and a personal story of missed connection tied both to the Japanese summer festival お盆 [Obon] and her paternal grandmother. Takeuchi reworks discarded calligraphy sheets from her おばあちゃん [obā-chan, grandmother] into handheld fans, ubiquitously used during Japan’s stifling summer months. Paired with a video of the artist performing improvisatory movements, Takeuchi finds solace between her transient physical practice and the ephemera of time shared in decades past.

Christopher Zanko presents a new work titled–in a moment of cosmic chance–How did I get here, the famous rhetorical refrain vocalised by Byrne 44 years ago. Zanko depicts the unassuming beauty of suburban anonymity, bringing to life deeply Australian mid-century red brick and weatherboard architecture. His scenes of neighbourhood life are rendered through meticulous carving and painting techniques, depicted with a bright and bold palette which straddles childhood daydreaming and a mature appreciation for the humble domicile. In this work, Zanko populates his often figureless paintings with characters from The Trap Door, a British stop-motion animation and ABC mainstay throughout the 1990s, conjuring fond memories of youth augmented through hopeful responsibilities of his parenthood. 

Across our existence, we physically and mentally experience a multitude of lifetimes. Luisa Hansal practises with an emotional elegance, her works on canvas the result of a dialogue between gesture, material and feelings. She processes moments of trauma, loss, resilience and relief by engaging in a wordless discussion of intuitively developed colours and symbols within each work. Hansal’s pieces float with ethereally affecting poise, structurally fading and morphing like the fragments of a dream forgotten; an embodied mental picture of intangible experiences once unknown becoming found.

In the spirit of the celebratory glisten of fireworks, Dylan Batty has embarked on a new project dedicated to all the cars he has owned, both fleeting and long term. Batty’s new work 1995 Suzuki Swift GTi study dutifully recreates the precise enamel hues of his first car, both honouring and mourning a compatriot lost to the scrapyards of wider Sydney. The work draws from techniques and experience using automotive paint and and aluminium first explored in BN Sports RX7 study from 2023, a body of work about the aspiration in trying to make his dream car a reality through an assemblage of deconstructed fabricated elements of the BN Sports BLS Suits Mazda FD RX-7.

/played

From 2004 to 2008 I played a lot of World of Warcraft. My memories of those years are largely tied to what I experienced in the game, present in the world but largely absent from the goings on of wider society. You can type the command ‘/played’ to see your total logged time. While I can’t remember precisely, by 2008 when I stopped playing I had accrued close to if not over 300 days. I even let off some fireworks in game. Strangely, I’m not ashamed of that and shockingly do not consider it time wasted. Others would strongly disagree. The story of the quantification of time does not often match the story of the qualification of time. Without that year within years tethered to the family computer, I wouldn’t have mastered the moderately useful skill of touch typing, or listened to as much new and existing music as what I considered humanly possible (that one is very important).

The connection between presence and absence is interesting and symbiotic: pawprints in a concrete footpath are evidence of the presence of a dog, however in becoming absent from the situation we are left with empty indents. Gabriella Lo Presti plays on this duality through her photomedia practice, with the individual active as a present or absent object captured through a single-point perspective lens. This conceptual tension realises itself across largely domestic scenes which, much like Christopher Zanko, seek the sublime in the mundane. Printed on plywood and corflute, Lo Presti’s photography purposefully betrays stoic forms of the medium. Pristine paper is substituted for upcycled materials while established formats of presentation are dramatically cropped away to reveal small snippets of a wider scene: a story within a story.

The notion of absence is similarly intrinsic to the reduction printing practice of Poppy Williams, who here presents a series of model cars animated into real world settings. Her creative method relies on the calculated removal of material to form designed blocks of colour, assembling through layers to create a complete image. This selection from her 2023 body of work I Can’t Drive toys with the relationship between abstract play and real life, and how Williams’ fascination with Hot Wheels did not translate to automotive machines. Her whimsical works on paper embody a dedication and commitment to the act of creating while recapturing an impulsive sense of play.

Alex Xerri’s visual language combines physical perspective with the practice of world building to create scenes of charming wonderment through imagination. Applied with a filter of prehistoric aesthetics, Xerri’s rough-hewn works on canvas capture the feeling of a moment, taking stock of recent and past events in respective works GOZO SPEED and MASTER OF REALITY. Her subjects are depicted as objects of transformative power: the raw engine power of a snakeified sedan ignites the subtropical tarmac of Gozo, while the immersive power of playing PlayStation by the glow of a CRT TV sends thunderbolts across a dim living room. Xerri encourages us to take stock of where we are during any given moment, understanding that the right here, right now is anything but ordinary.

When I was composing a piece of writing about Peter Blamey, he said over the phone “garbage is a name for something when you’ve run out of ideas.” This statement largely encompasses his practice of curiously finding alternative uses for everyday objects, from generating sound output from solar panels to using a flatbed scanner to capture the infrared electromagnetic radiation of discarded remote controls, as presented in Invisible Residue Scan 1–5 from 2020. Blamey’s artistic practice is almost metaperformative, playing the role of someone who thinks what they are doing is interesting (even when Peter may not believe that himself). His subversively experimental and wholly unique methodology is rooted in a ‘what if?’ mindset. What if discarded personal butane lighters could be an installation that reflexively places Robert Rauchenberg’s Combines in direct dialogue with the colour theory painting of Roy de Maistre while simultaneously acknowledging Marcel Duchamp’s groundbreaking readymade work through a post-pop perspective? Blamey may not have asked that exact question, but his subconscious learned brain did.

On Christian Marclay, The Clock (2010)

The Clock (2010) by American-Swiss artist and composer Christian Marclay was presented in 2012–13 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, coinciding with their curated group exhibition Marking Time. The work is famously a forensically precise examination of the interplay between cinematic time and narrative emotion, presenting audiences a fully-functional timepiece that subjects viewers to an emotional whirlwind of scenes, tones and filmic perspectives across 24 hours, localised to its exhibition venue. It is not only a masterwork of cinematic studies, the art of editing, an archival study and a conductor of sensorial responses, but a powerfully rich text on the boxing of time. 

Unwavering temporal flow has been delineated into mathematical measurements by humanity at least as early as the Sumerian sexagesimal system developed around 3,100 BCE, millennia before Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens invented a properly functioning pendulum in 1656. The number 60 has been synonymous with time for a real long time, and continues to dictate our day by day. Marclay’s The Clock adheres rigorously to the tick tock of a second hand while also shuffling our perception of time with polyrhythmic narratives that ebb and flow alongside the urgency of whatever scene is projected at that precise moment. However, the information provided by a clock may often mislead us, as a piece of media frequently forsakes linear time in service of a good story. We are okay with this because a film like Boyhood (which I don’t like) can radically compress real life time the same way Superbad (which I do like) can less radically compress fake time, and we accept it not only for entertainment but because we experienced existence at an unnatural pace.

This act of compressing time into space is essential to the work of Nick Santoro, who here presents a scene of classical density. Posture of Champions situates us in the mise-en-scène of Wollongong, with composed vignettes populated by Santoro’s friends, family and random strangers sourced from Google Images and social media. His diverse narrative fragments are entwined by their location, an assemblage of memorable events and possible occurrences bound across time by their all happening at the unassuming intersections of Burelli Street. Santoro offers us a study of wider Australian society within a vastly compelling episode of interlinked plots, depicted with sharp wit and palette that reveals this extraordinary story we are witnessing. 

The Clock intentionally withholds information from audiences in service of its artistic purpose, removing any semblance of ingrained narrative to each filmic segment to present the metatextual thesis statement. The works presented by Johanna Ng similarly obfuscate still and moving images by knowingly adding and removing an apparatus of visibility to recount an intimate story of family archive. mother and father reminisce about Hong Kong depicts a recording of Ng dutifully cleaning projector slides that document her parents’ previous lives in Hong Kong, clouded by a frosted sheet of perspex like a soap opera camera lens with too much vaseline. The accompanying work we don't talk about patrick is a framed film slide, made inert through the absence of light, suggesting an unspoken secret about the contents of Ng’s object.

Kai Wasikowski utilises digital photography, 3D scanning and rendering to challenge our relationship and understanding of western systems of knowledge and categorisation. His series Bounded in a Nutshell / King of Infinite Space examines the practice of environmental conservation and its contentious relationship to colonial expansionism across indigenous land, drawing attention to how information is categorised and utilised to exert control over nature. His photomedia works combine visualised 3D sculptures composed of hundreds of single-perspective still images, then exported with varying degrees of data included or omitted. Wasikowski’s transhistorical digital naturalism seeps into the uncanny valley as the 19th century photographic romanticism of the wild unknown is decayed through a series of blossoming point clouds suspended in virtual space.

If The Clock seeks to highlight the passage of time through a constructed environment, Chris Burton purposefully captures the inverse: frozen in moments of stasis. Burton depicts abandoned buildings he incidentally encounters, structures lying in wait as urban renewal claims their dilapidated half-lives. His textural pencil and toner transfer prints relish in the coincidental patterns and shapes of construction equipment, while simultaneously recording at-risk buildings with the eye of a documentarian. Burton presents his architectural subjects with dignity, offering these empty spaces a moment to tell their stories before they are lost in the rubble. 

Fireworks: The Mix

I welcome you to take a copy of Fireworks: The Mix – while stocks last. This burned CD contains one song from each artist presented, and myself. There was no suggestion or brief to respond to, simply whatever everyone was feeling at the time. Try to guess who contributed what song, it could be a fun game.

Thank you for reading this very long piece of writing.

China Heights gallery presents new and revisited works by Dean De Landre, Katrina Hill & Jarryd Lynagh co-presented by Louis Vuitton at their Brisbane flagship location. This exhibition brings together three Australian artists who explore the depths of visual culture, memory, and emotional expression through their unique artistic practices.

Dean De Landre, a painter based in Victoria, works predominantly with found illustrations, especially comic book cells. Through a process of alteration, he reduces the colour palettes and textures of these images, transforming them into striking black line works set against minimalist monochromatic backgrounds. His pieces are full of contrast: some, like his depictions of explosions, contain vast energy, teetering on the edge of containment, while others exude a sense of stillness and tranquility, inviting the viewer to engage with the images in a more contemplative way. De Landre’s work challenges the viewer to look beyond the surface, prompting a deeper exploration of the narratives embedded within popular visual culture.

Katrina Hill is an Australian artist based in Brisbane, where she also works as a personalisation artist for Louis Vuitton. Raised in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales in the 1980s, Hill was influenced by both the natural landscape and the vibrant pop culture of the era. With formal training in Interior Design, Animation, and Fine Arts, Hill’s work draws on diverse fields such as neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. Her paintings reflect a deeply personal journey of emotion and introspection, using abstraction, bold colour, and dynamic shapes to create mandala-like structures and geometric forms that ground her practice in the present moment. Hill’s first piece in this exhibition, Release, was inspired by the radiant spirit of her mother and captures the emotional complexity of the transition from life to death, embodying both the sorrow of loss and the beauty of release. Through this collection, Hill explores themes of grief, healing, and resilience, using recurring symbols such as the eye, circle, flower, and grid to navigate the emotional landscape of trauma and recovery.

Jarryd Lynagh works through an obscured lens, reimagining found photographs into fragmented narratives that challenge the viewer’s relationship with memory and perception. Photographs, often trusted as windows into reality, hold an intrinsic sense of truth. Yet Lynagh’s manipulation of these images reveals the constructed nature of visual storytelling. The photographs, gathered over the past decade, are abstracted and unmoored by the passage of time, creating a space where memory, reality, and distortion collide. In his work, Lynagh exposes how images, despite their apparent authenticity, can lie—offering a powerful reminder of the complexities and manipulations inherent in photographic imagery.

The works of De Landre, Hill, and Lynagh in this exhibition invite us to pause and reflect on the meanings embedded within the images we encounter. Through their distinctive approaches to image-making and their thoughtful engagement with the analog process, the artists expose the tension between reality and illusion, the past and the present, and the personal and the universal. In doing so, they offer a fresh perspective on the power of visual culture and its ability to reveal new narratives, insights, and emotions.