RIPPLES
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Wednesday - Sunday
Old Kiama Fire Station
Extended open night with live music Saturday, 7.30pm
Jenny Asquith didn't quite realise what she was taking on when she set out to organise a collaborative art exhibition between herself and the dancers, musicians and writers of the Illawarra.
Initially meant to be a project with one representative from each of the art forms, it became much bigger than she expected, with six musicians, four writers and two dancers keen to respond to her artworks in their own way.
"It's meant to stimulate creative activity in the artistic community and involve interaction and collaboration and influence from the different art forms - visual art, literature, music and dance," she says.
Ripples is an exhibition of layers. Asquith started by painting pieces inspired by well-known works from other artists, musicians and writers, such as Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Van Gogh's Starry Night and the works of Australian writer Tim Winton.
She then gave the finished works to writers who responded to them in various forms, including a poem and a description of a memory one of the works triggered. The dancers and musicians responded by creating pieces inspired by what the art meant to them.
The written compositions will be hung next to each painting and the dancers' and musicians' performances have been filmed, a projection of which will play to music written especially for the exhibition.
The project took close to a year to complete. But Asquith says there is one more layer the exhibition requires - viewer involvement.
"People can see that the Moonlight Sonata was the original inspiration for the art, but I have interpreted it this way, then the writer has written a poem that is like this, and I'm hoping that then the viewer will have the poem mean something to them in another way, and they will have the opportunity to write or draw that in drawing books at the exhibition."
While the name Ripples stems partly from these layers, it also refers to what unifies many of Asquith's pieces - water.
"In literature, my inspiration has come from Tim Winton and Marion Halligan and the way they use water as a metaphor for desire. Water is sensuous and buoyant and you get that sense of lightness, but there's also risk and danger in the ocean and I think they're very clever in expressing that in their writing and I've tried to express that in the paintings that were inspired by them."
Primarily an oil painter and print maker, an unexpected development from this exhibition was Asquith's growing interest in digital art.
"I'm certainly not a digital artist or video artist, but it's becoming like that. It's exciting for me because it means I've had a ripple effect, I've extended my art scope by taking a risk and doing something different."
She hopes Ripples will continue to evolve once the Kiama show has finished and intends to ask more artists to be involved in other areas of the Illawarra.