Compositional Utterances

Compositional Utterances, installation view, University of Sunshine Coast, 2023. Image: Carl Warner.

Exhibition: Thursday 11 January – Saturday 2 March 2024

Launch: 6pm, Friday 12 January

Mandy Quadrio (Trawlwoolway), Susan Hawkins and Jan Oliver

Compositional Utterances is a site-responsive, collaborative exhibition by three artists whose material-led practices share feminist and ecological concerns. The exhibition is the product of deep conversation and collaboration between Brisbane-based artists Mandy Quadrio, Susan Hawkins and Jan Oliver.

Mandy Quadrio, Susan Hawkins and Jan Oliver have practices centred on the formal and narrative potential of their chosen materials: Quadrio works with sea grass, bull kelp and ochres important to her as a Trawlwoolway woman, alongside steel wool; Hawkins works with reclaimed domestic and industrial objects drawing out their potential to make sound and movement; and Oliver uses force and delicacy to alter the surfaces of her materials while considering the co-existence of animate and inanimate entities in the spaces they inhabit.

Working together as friends, collaborators and peers, Quadrio, Hawkins and Oliver bring together their chosen materials as an immersive installation.

The exhibition and publication were developed by The University of the Sunshine Coast Art Gallery in partnership with NorthSite Contemporary Arts. The exhibition at Court House Gallery, Cairns is supported by Cairns Regional Council.