Grace Culley’s ‘Surprised face; Heart eyes’ at West Space
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Day to day we operate within the unspoken norms of society: don’t stare, be quiet on public transport, look both ways, smile back. We endeavour not to rock the boat, but when we do we spiral, replaying situations over and over in our minds.
Mistakes = regret. Regret = sadness. Sadness = a loss of dopamine.
As humans we try to avoid this loss by taking on a dopamine-centric worldview, chasing validation and approval at every turn. How, then, are members of the neurodiverse community – whose experience of dopamine, desire and control differ – expected to assimilate? Grace Culley’s exhibition ‘Surprised face; Heart eyes’ unpacks this concept and how it collides with the expected societal notions of acceptable behaviour.
Tucked away on Level 1 of Collingwood Yards, West Space is unexpectedly lofty. As you enter the gallery a thin structure comes into view, its rough black body leaning against the wall. Titled The Gate, the carbon fibre and steel sculptural assemblage takes a moment to grasp, its exaggerated Gothic font creating an anamorphic illusion. ‘Heavn’ it reads, the gate to heaven.
An ambient guitar track loops in the background, circulating from the two large speakers in the corner of the room. Its easy mellow tune rubs against the industrial materials of Culley’s sculptures, imbuing a sense of poetic duality. In many ways this exhibition pays homage to the aesthetics of Naarm/Melbourne’s inner north. Padlocks, steel, newspaper and resin adorn Golden Brown and you know you love me (both 2023), visually referencing the area’s architectural landmarks and ubiquitous iron fencing in an expressly rough style that invokes niche Melbourne sentimentality.
In Fallen from Grace (2023), these aesthetics are laid bare through the tenacious repetition of ballpoint pen on paper. The artist kneels at the centre of the drawing, her hands pressing against her thighs and her back arched. She is facing away from the viewer, her long hair tossed over her shoulders, adorned in a cropped sweater and tight thong. It resembles the type of softcore pornography we might see on Instagram. However, the enraptured face of a demon disrupts this fantasy, its eyes fluttered back in ecstasy, an engorged tongue rolling down the lower back. This disturbance is not a mere commentary on women’s bodies or the oversexualisation of the female form. Rather, as informed by Culley’s experience of Tourette’s syndrome, this drawing acts as a self-portrait merging feelings associated with the loss of control with the societal judgments surrounding the condition. It focuses on the way in which these judgments have proliferated in online spaces and how the artist, as a young woman, responds.
‘Surprised face; Heart eyes’ explores Tourette’s syndrome both conceptually and physically. The audience can feel the laborious repetition of the artist’s hand, identifying the many loops, hatches, scrunches, mouldings and welding that occurred to produce them. The exhibition catalogue includes a conversation between Culley and West Space Curator Sebastian Henry-Jones, in which the artist addresses why repetition is so integral to this exhibition, stating: ‘Sometimes it’s nice to repeat things that are causing me physical strain and stress but aren’t tics.’
Alongside the artist’s own circumstances, the exhibition draws from the extensive body of preparatory research conducted by Culley concerning others living with dopamine imbalances. Beautiful and haunting, the exhibition asks its audience to reflect on their experience of dopamine, how they chase it, wield it and judge others who differ.
Lily Beamish, Naarm/Melbourne
‘Surprised face; Heart eyes’ by Grace Culley is being exhibited at West Space in Naarm/Melbourne until 29 April 2023.
