Christine McMillan, Breath 2007
Christine McMillan observes and documents changes in the vegetation around her studio home in Kandos, near the Blue Mountains. Grass seeds of many varieties have sprouted since recent rain. She tracks their motion in the wind, and their changing shapes as they absorb and release moisture from the air. Dense growth areas of grass are animated to reveal the changes through varying distances. By setting the camera’s focal point from close to distant over time, we see the foliage from an insect’s perspective. The changing light, colours and forms envelop you. “Grass” becomes un-nameable experience.
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Christine McMillan’s work is part of a current of contemporary practice that reveals a new way of seeing the Australian landscape, one that draws from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous art practice and is based on strong environmental and ethical philosophies…Her choice of material, whether it is the leaves and resin of the grass trees, carp scales, echidna quills, muslin or gold laced quartz from Hill End, is selected for its inherent connection to a landscape.
Alexandrw Torrens
Curator
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery
2003
FEMALE MACHINE
GRASSTREAD
I animate the shadows changing over a sliver dress dummy, and the grass flattening with my treading.
The silver dress dummy can be an object of Antarctica’s Mechanical era (1950’s).