Salt // Sammy Hawker
February 9 - March 25, 2023
The Mixing Room Gallery
Thor’s Hammer presents Salt, an exhibition by ACT based visual artist, Sammy Hawker, showing at The Mixing Room Gallery in 2023.
Travelling from the East Coast (the Yuin Nation & Arakwal Country) to Kati Thanda - Lake Eyre (Arabana Country), Salt documents Sammy's recent trip across Australia. These are places where a quiet magic resonates; where the water leaves the blood sparkling in your veins; where the horizon disappears and the sound of nothingness compresses around you.
In her practice Sammy Hawker looks at ways to co-create imagery with the places she’s working. Many of the photographs in this show have been processed in the location they were captured and exposed to traces of salt found within the site (ocean water, salt crust).
When processing photographic negatives with salt, the corrosive properties lift the silver emulsion and the representational image is rendered vague.
Still, an essence of the site is introduced to the frame as the vibrant matter paints its way onto the negative, a reminder of the dynamic agency of the more-than human, the unresolved mysteries that exist around us and the resonance of the deeper forces that will so creatively interrogate and transform a photograph.
Works on sale
If you are interested in a work, feel free to download the catalogue below, and please call us on 6282 9900 if you have any questions or if you would like to check availability.
In the media…
Review by Con Boekel for CityNews
“Salt represents a jump step in Hawker’s ongoing creative development. The large scale prints are dramatic. The continuity is provided by the conceptual underpinnings along with the technical evolution of the salt application.
Does the above always work? In an important sense, this should not be an expectation.
Sometimes, nature does the unpredictable thing. The results may have a somewhat schizophrenic look to them: the landscapes may look extremely real and extremely not real at the same time. The juxtaposition of crystal-scale marks with sweeping landscape scale light capture tends to create dual visual realities.
Hawker’s particular gift lies in unifying these elements pictorially.
When it all comes together as in “Voices [Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre], 2022”, “Mount Gulaga, 2021” and “Dark Crystals, 2021”, Hawker’s works are major artistic achievements.”
“For Hawker’s art, four concepts overlap. The first is a desire to connect with nature. The second is that nature can be a co-creator. The third is that humans cannot control nature. The fourth is that landscapes embed our history.”
Review by Brian Rope for Canberra Times
“This exhibition once again delivers. As senior curator of visual arts at Canberra Museum and Gallery, Virginia Rigney, said in her opening remarks, Hawker's use of the familiar substance of salt reveals new mysteries.
This exhibition includes works from recent trips across Australia, travelling from the east coast (the Yuin Nation and Arakwal Country) to Kati Thanda - Lake Eyre (Arabana Country).
Taking her "studio" with her, she has spent significant time at each location to understand it, then co-created art by processing photos where they were exposed using traces of salt found at the sites to lift the emulsion and alter the documentary images. Hawker speaks of places where a quiet magic resonates; where the water leaves the blood sparkling in your veins; where the horizon disappears - and the sound of nothingness compresses around you.
Hawker's process brings an essence of country into her work, painting its way onto negatives and sharing deep and mysterious forces around us that transform her photographs.”
“Hawker’s process brings an essence of country into her work, painting its way onto negatives and sharing deep and mysterious forces around us that transform her photographs.”
About the Artist
Sammy Hawker is an Australian based visual artist working predominantly on Ngunawal, Ngunnawal, Ngambri Country [Canberra, ACT].
In her practice Sammy examines forms of co-creation as a method of celebrating the voices of the worlds around us. She is particularly intrigued by the tactility of analogue film and the possibilities this presents in facilitating more-than human mark making on the final image. Sammy has co- created work with oceans, rivers, honey-bees, seaweed and Eucalpytus trees. The unpredictable input of these collaborators disrupts her authorial control and encourages a new ecology based on a postcolonial equality between the human and more-than human.
In 2022 Sammy’s work Mount Gulaga was the winner of the Mullins Conceptual Photography Prize and acquired by the Muswellbrook Regional Art Centre. She was also a recipient of artsACT & Contour 556 ‘City Commissions’ grant, installed her work Ocean Resonance for the Canberra Art Biennial, and exhibited a video work Water Memory (in collaboration with Research Fellow Paul Wyrwoll) as part of the Waterways Country Symposium at the National Museum of Australia.
In 2021 Sammy’s solo exhibition ‘Acts of Co-Creation’, also at The Mixing Room Gallery, was a recipient of the Canberra Critics Circle Award for photography. The centrepiece of this exhibition Ngungara #1 was acquired by Canberra Museum & Gallery. In 2021 Sammy was also the ‘Dark Matter’ darkroom resident at PhotoAccess, ACT. The centrepiece of her residency solo exhibition, Melt, was acquired by the ACT Legislative Assembly.
INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST
Sammy had a chat with Neil Doody from ArtSound radio station on their ‘Arts Cafe’ program. Listen to the interview below. ArtSound FM is an independent, locally focused community arts and music station, and a great supporter of Canberra art, music and culture. We’re incredibly grateful for their interest and support.
Key Details
EXHIBITION DATES: February 9 - March 25, 2023
EXHIBITION OPENING: 6pm Friday 10 February (SOLD OUT)
WHERE: The Mixing Room Gallery at Thor’s Hammer, 10 Mildura St, Griffith, ACT.
GALLERY HOURS: Monday - Friday 8-5pm and Saturdays 9-1pm.
ENTRY DETAILS: No tickets or bookings required to view exhibition. Bookings required to attend opening event.
Please note: The Mixing Room Gallery is located up two flights of stairs. If you have mobility issues, we're very sorry but we are unable to cater for your needs. Our greatest apologies.
THE MIXING ROOM GALLERY COMMUNITY PARTNER
Thanks to Capital Brewing Co. for their ongoing support of our exhibition opening events at The Mixing Room Gallery. Capital is a B-Corp Certified, Canberra born and bred institution and Australia’s first Climate Active certified 100% carbon neutral brewery!
Here at The Mixing Room Gallery, we curate artists and exhibitions that align with the environmental ethos of Thor’s Hammer as a business. Having support from like-minded partners like Capital Brewing Co. is incredibly important to us, and to the integrity of the Mixing Room Gallery program.