VCA ART 2020

Melissa Keys

Ghosting notes

Elusive, muted and indeterminant, ghost notes in music have rhythm but no pitch—they suggest silence without being silent. They are often played between main notes, where they hover like shadows of those sounds. Almost indiscernible in between emphases, and sometimes referred to as false or dead notes, ghost notes add dimension and depth to a composition. Subtle and soft, these forms and silences occupy rhythmic spaces in combination with what we recognisably discern and hear. Artists register them too – between breaths (fugitive, glimpsed, sensory, inherited), as undercurrents lodged in resonant objects, or as fragments of memories barely recalled after deep sleep or emergent in daydreams seemingly incidental and at the periphery of daily life, yet suggestive of so much more.

Yuqing Chen, Eyes, video projection, 2020
Olivia Mròz, Little Olivia, Ona, hair, apron, stool, dried raspberries, walking stick, papier-mâché / 18 second video loop, 2020
Christina May Carey, Hidden View, Work 1: Moon, HD Video, MDF and timber projection screen. Work 2: Touch the Skylight, HD video, LED TV, custom steel plinth and acrylic display case. Work 3: Pool, HD video, iPad, custom wall mount, 2020. Documentation by Aaron Christopher Rees.
Anna McDermott, Why must my body be so honest? single channel video and sound, 3:11m, 2020
Jarrah Storey, Body Line, two channel colour video, 2 minutes 53 seconds, satin acrylic sheet, steel rigging, 2020.
Anna Steele, White Horizon I, concrete, metal rods, oil and enamel on canvas, 2020
Jivan Simons Mistry, Drift, Super 8, transferred to HD video, 2020
Mi-Mi Fitzsimmons, Mamihlapinatapai, silk, stainless steel, timber, 2020
Sarah Rudledge, Remembering Matsushima Island, cotton yarn, bamboo spools, chairs, knitting needles, 2019 — Documentation by Christo Crocker, Eliza Dyball and Aaron Rees.

Melissa Keys

With more than 20 years of professional experience working in institutions and independently, Melissa Keys has curated and collaborated on wide range of contemporary art projects and programs in leading museums, galleries, art spaces and public sites, nationally and internationally. Currently Senior Curator, Art Museums at the University of Melbourne, and formally Curator at Buxton Contemporary, Melissa has held roles at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, NETS (National Exhibitions Touring Support Victoria), the Embassy of Australia Washington DC, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) and Heide Museum of Modern Art. In 2009, she was Asialink Curator in Residence at KHOJ, International Artists Association in New Delhi, India, and in 2012 she undertook a curatorial residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York. Born in Melbourne, Australia, Melissa holds a BFA from the Victorian College of the Arts and an MA in Art Curatorship from the University of Melbourne.

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We acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Owners of the lands upon which our campus is situated, the people of the Boon Wurrung and Woi Wurrung, who have created art, made music and told their stories here for thousands of generations. We also acknowledge and extend our respect to the Traditional Owners of all lands on which our work is viewed, shared and enjoyed, and to all Elders, past, present and emerging.

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