Exhibition dates: 20th October – 14th November 2009
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“I am interested in this border between the real and the imagined, the constructed and the natural.”
Vera Moller quoted in The Age newspaper
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Vera Moller
‘Rabinova’
2009
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Vera Moller
‘Veronium’
2007
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Vera Moller
‘Martinette’
2009
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Vera Moller
‘Shapinette’
2009
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There is a lot of mutability floating around current exhibitions in Melbourne at the moment. At the National Gallery of Victoria we have the deathly, eloquent freeze frame mutability of Ricky Swallow; at Tolarno Galleries we have the genetic hyper-realist mutability of Patricia Piccinini; and at Sophie Gannon Gallery we have the surreal, spatial mutability of Vera Möller.
In this exhibition the real meets the imagined and the constructed encounters the natural in delicate sculptures and beautiful paintings. Coral snake and mutated striped hydras float above Phillip Huntersque backgrounds, looking oh so innocent until one remembers that hydras are predatory animals: the stripes, like the strips of a prisoners uniform not so innocent after all.
These ‘portraits’ (for that is what they strike me as) emerge from the recesses of the subconscious, rising up like some absurd alien fish from the deep. The sculptural forests of mutated specimens waft on the breeze of the ocean current. This detritus of biotechnology, living in the dark and the shadow, emerges into the light and space of the gallery – genetic recombinations in which a strands of genetic material are broken and then joined to another DNA molecule. In Möller’s work this chromosomal crossover has led to offspring (called ‘recombinants’) that dance to a surrealist tune: genetic algorithms that use mutation to maintain genetic diversity from one generation of chromosomes to the next.1
Spatially there is a lightness of touch and a beauty to their representation that brings the work alive within the gallery space. However, Möller’s recombinants are as deadly as they are beautiful. I really liked these creatures narcoleptic shadow dances.
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Vera Moller
‘Telenium’
2009
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Vera Moller
‘Rubella’
2008-09
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Vera Moller
‘Bureniana’
2008
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Installation photographs of ‘Nocturnalians and Shadow Eaters’ by Vera Moller at Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne
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Vera Moller
‘Benthinium’
2008-09
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1. Definition of mutation (genetic algorithm) in Wikipedia.
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Sophie Gannon Gallery
2, Albert Street, Richmond, Melbourne
Opening hours: Tues – Saturday 11 – 5pm
