Skelton&Conway’s Tend To is a video work that explores the emphasis and value that has been found within small acts of care and attention, as they became paramount amid the COVID pandemic. With a sudden abundance of time and solitude, menial tasks became significant; grounding and deserving of great attention.
These acts of care, nurturing, availability and attention were and continue to be visible in tasks like baking, gardening, and are largely shared within friendships and community.
The collaborative pairs latest video work watches as the two carefully ‘tend to’ a collection of plants in a public green space on Gadigal land. Taking the time to dust, spray, wipe down and trim these plants, Skelton&Conway extend domestic routines into public spheres. Quiet, often deemed insignificant tasks are emphasised, publicised and celebrated.
For the fifth iteration of Skelton&Conway’s ongoing project, Lunch Special, the collaborative duo mimic the aesthetics of television food shows with costumes, lights and a large-scale projection, to explore the role of spectacle in performance art.
Removing the emphasis on entertainment that is prominent in television, the collaborative pair instead focus intensely on production.
Concentrating on making and presenting high quality cheese toasties, the emphasis of the performance is placed on artistic labour.
A new exhibition by Skelton & Conway
3rd-18th of May at AIRspace, Marrickville
Calloused is an activated installation by the collaborative duo Skelton & Conway that examines the complexities of preservation and the value of object in contemporary society. Using ‘simulated nature’, Skelton & Conway magnify the disjunction between the cosmetic appearance and the intended purpose of domestic objects. This is done by wrapping and vacuum sealing objects, making their purpose instantaneously redundant and their existence entirely superficial.
The superfluity of preservation is exaggerated further by each object existing as plastic imitations of their naturally occurring counterparts. Plastic plants, a defunct fish tank and an LED pond accompanied by the aroma of air freshener are observed in an artificial exhibition environment, exaggerating a particular absurdity within the way we address conservation. In the space the superficiality of preservation becomes overt; purpose is exchanged for facade.
For Electricity, an exhibition curated by Dr. Maryanne Coutts at Grace Cossington Smith Gallery, Skelton&Conway performed the fourth iteration of their ongoing series titled Lunch Special. On the opening event the pair prepared, produced, packaged and displayed a series of five unique works.
The exhibition explored drawing that is enhanced by a simple electric current. Within their experimental process that combines traditional mediums of ink with bread, butter and cheese, the use of a jaffle maker and vacuum seal device fuses the materials together and plays an integral role in the performative process. Both electrical devices are used regularly for their prescribed purposes but when used within the gallery to make art objects Skelton&Conway purposefully disrupt the negotiation of value of these simple domestic elements.
Lunch Special III is Skelton & Conway’s third and most recent iteration of the ongoing Lunch Special series that aims to dismantle and declassify the structure of contemporary art and it’s marketplace.
Exhibited and performed over the duration of The Other Art Fair, Sydney, the pair performed the processes of producing, packaging and selling a series of Special Edition ‘prints’, whilst also selling a limited number of pre-made stock. The performance began at the commencement of the fair, as the pair manned their stall and discussed their product with attendee’s. Each print was labelled with the date of production, sale price and additional product information. Each sale became memorabilia, or physical evidence of the durational performance.
Images courtesy of The Other Art Fair and Anton Rehrl, Corvid Photography
Lunch Special II is Skelton&Conway’s second iteration of an ongoing series which dismantles and declassifies the structure of contemporary art and it’s marketplace. Through the lense of printmaking and performance art, Lunch Special inspects the processes of commodifying and attributing value to contemporary art.
Performance Art, being immaterial as opposed to an ‘object’, is of incalculable value. To determine said value, the artist/s has to make the ephemeral collectable.
Over the duration of a day, the pair perform the processes of producing, packaging and selling a limited edition ‘print’. The duration of each phase of the performance runs simultaneously with each sale, ending once the print is handed to the buyer. The print exists as a product or memorabilia of the performance.
Skelton&Conway decide to replace traditional print media, ink and paper, with Bread, butter and cheese.
Choosing materials with a due by date as the collectable matter of a performance inherently disrupts the processes of the art market and the negotiation of value.
Careful wrapping and vacuum packing of the print attempts to make it archival. The print will eventually degrade, but once purchased, it is up to the buyer to decide when and how.
Images courtesy of Ivana Jovanovic
Lunch Special I is Skelton&Conway’s first iteration of an ongoing series which dismantles and declassifies the structure of contemporary art and it’s marketplace. Through the lense of printmaking and performance art, Lunch Special inspects the processes of commodifying and attributing value to contemporary art.
Performance Art, being immaterial as opposed to an ‘object’, is of incalculable value. To determine said value, the artist/s has to make the ephemeral collectable.
Over the duration of a day, the pair perform the processes of producing, packaging and selling a limited edition ‘print’. The print exists as a product or memorabilia of the performance.
Skelton&Conway decide to replace traditional print media, ink and paper, with Bread, butter and cheese.
Choosing materials with a due by date as the collectable matter of a performance inherently disrupts the processes of the art market and the negotiation of value.
The print will eventually degrade, but once purchased, it is up to the buyer to decide when and how.
With thanks to Daniel Soma
Images courtesy of Jayanto Tan and Margaret Jewell
White Wash is a site specific installation made for Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2017. Strecthing across 24 metres, this is the first major outdoor project the pair have done. Unlike previous installation that welcomes the audience into described environments and attempting to directly influence their viewing experience; White Wash responds to the surrounding land, and the connotations associated with land ownership and the physical and internal barriers we put up.
White Wash is a multifaceted sculpture that depicts large, simplified clothes drying racks with white polyester fabric draped through the structure. By using the familiar visual language of domestic imagery this work conveys themes of complicitcy and contradition concerning Australia's attitudes to our borders. The definition of a border is a line separating two areas, the edge or boundary of something. The irony embedded within the debate of border protection suggests an entitlement over the land through excluding others from it. This significantly fails to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and thus emphasises the complexity of one’s understanding of ‘Borders’. Modern Australia is built upon stolen land; it has a long and ongoing history of immigration, yet maintains a perpetuating culture of exclusion.
White wash is a natural border that surrounds the country and in using this as a visual metaphor, Skelton and Conway have manufactured a physical barrier in order to highlight these issues.
Images Courtesy of Sculpture by the Sea, Clyde Yee and Jessica Wyld.
Domestic Barrier 1, 2017
acrylic, wood paling, MDF, astro turf
60 x 60 x 45 cm
Domestic Barrier 1 explores the concept of borders. By replicating sections of domestic barriers with the duplicity of exterior and interior facades it investigates conflicting attitudes towards ownership of space.
Set within the walls of a Motel room, Amelia and Tango play with the notion of vacancy within transitory spaces. The Motel room is ultimately a type of limbo by design. Its occupants only exist within its walls for short periods of time as they are betwixt their travels and the only thing that exists with permanence is the furniture within it.
No / Vacancy humours the idea of this transitory space disguising itself as a familiar, intimate environment. The room remains devoid of personality despite housing multitudes of people grappling with their own personal histories. Collecting the intimate moments left behind by each occupant, the motel room becomes a vessel filled with the residue of human experience.
The collaborative pair are notably interested in the role that inanimate objects play in emoting an environment. Their installations welcome the audience into described environments that aim to directly influence the way you view the space around you. The audience become passive spectators into a familiar yet distant world and in this case made to feel as though they are intruding on a space that seems recently vacated or perhaps still in use.
The home is an external projection of its inhabitant. Through the collection and arrangement of inanimate objects, intimate aspects of ones private life are revealed. 88 Howard Street emphasises the idea of a home acting as a sanctuary, fostering and housing ideas that are often too taboo for public display.
88 Howard Street utilises the descriptive power of inanimate objects to openly satirise the ill-fitting characteristics of the ‘Stereotypical Australian’, a protagonist distant from the majority of the Australian population in both present and past tense. Through the disjunction of objects within the installation in combination with the uncanny sense of nostalgia that fills the room, 88 Howard Street aims to undermine the ‘True Blue’ Australian.
88 Howard Street is the debut installation by Tango Conway and Amelia Skelton as Skelton & Conway at the National Art School, Darlinghurst . Whilst simultaneously developing their individual practices, the two sculpture students banded together to extend their mutual interests of colour, domesticity and narrative.
Photos courtesy of Robin Hearfield and Peter Morgan
