‘Almost Lost’ - Catalogue Essay by Jennifer Kalionis, 2008 Angela Black paints dreams. Not dreams conjured up during slumber but waking dreams, daydreams the mind slips into when confronted by the suggestion of a memory, a past event or person. Although the paintings capture moments selected from an inherited visual library these works are more than memories put to canvas, they express the tension, piecemeal delight and seductive elusiveness of the act of remembering. Despite their source, there is no guaranteed veracity in these images. They might be reflections or constructions of a past never lived. They are dreams within dreams, beautiful and disquieting fragments of a possible reality. 1 In this cohesive exhibition Black continues her investigation and interpretation of her father’s documentary footage. Black’s father was an avid photographer, and his library of cine films forms the backbone of her current work. These paintings are developed from stills, and together they form a study of the rupture and fragmentation of time, and family history. Black draws the viewer into an eerily familiar world of hereditary memory, shared by a biological family and reworked for a new audience into segments, partly constructed from imagination and partly fed by reality. Memories, Black reminds us, are not facts. Like dreams, they can be altered, controlled, re-worked and distorted. Timekeepers is not an exact replication of a hazy, wintry afternoon spent in the park but an indistinct and eerie oil that blurs the boundary between personal history and constructed narrative. The work is quiet, muted, blurred and yet clear in parts, like a detached and fleeting memory that is difficult to fully grasp. Timekeepers is dark, mysterious and compelling, and like many of Black’s works it engenders an unfolding sensation of distress within the viewer. In Almost Lost II, Black’s often soft and smoky brushstrokes give way to inky recesses and shadows in which lurk undefined realities. The soft, cool tones in the work highlight the foreboding elements in the unspoken narrative. A young boy is enveloped by lush green foliage. Fully immersed in his own world, he may not realise yet that he has gone too far into the depths of a sinister environment. Like many of the figures the artist depicts, this youth is portrayed with his gaze averted from the viewer. This choice highlights the exasperating attempts one undergoes when seeking to reconstruct or remember a precise yet fleeting moment from the past. An overall sensation of the incident might be found, but the exact details or identities of the protagonists are often ambiguous. Similarly, there is a dark nostalgia at work in Unspoken. In this painting, a girl sits quietly, isolated and reflective in the shadows, her eyes downcast. Her dress and hair glow with a soft aura that draws the viewer to her. The darkness reveals other figures, watching, waiting. As in all of her paintings, Black deals with her subject matter with delicacy. Her sense of composition and velvety tones add mystery, and encourage a seductive voyeurism that impels the viewer to study the shadows, seeking clarity and meaning. Unspoken is an investigation of the past that rejects sentimentality in favour of the exploration of the fragmentation of memory. By breaking up her own personal narrative Black reveals how important the sequence of memory is to the way we describe and know ourselves. No matter whether they are factually accurate the varied interpretations of memories can define a moment, define us, a time and perhaps divide a family. Black’s images offer varied meanings and challenge the way we construct and remember our own experiences. The works in this exhibition tap into our preoccupation with the past, and with the process of documentation of family history. Black’s specific choice to reveal snapshots of time, edited highlights from a family reel, show the complex relationships between memory, time and identity. These works represent a series of moments that might define one’s life or interrupt the continuity of a life story. Most interestingly Black’s images look at the ways in which we remember and forget – or reconstruct our lives. Visual memories are unreliable, blurry, hazy and tainted by imagination and external influences. They fade in and out, shift focus and blend together creating an impression of an experience or a moment in time. Black does not enforce meaning in her works; each delicate image is suffused with her own personal history, yet enigmatic and mysterious enough to allow the viewer to read segments of their own story in the narratives. The artist skews reality, paints an alternate vision for the past and yet retains an honesty that draws the viewer into each image. These fugitive moments are truly compelling, almost lost in time and memory but re-imagined here in this captivating and complex exhibition.       1 Edgar Allen Poe, A Dream Within A Dream, 1827. [ back ] Angela Black