Constance ARI

'The artist dwells in the circumstances the present offers him, so as to turn the setting of his life (his with the physical and conceptual world) into a lasting world. He catches the world on the move… Nowadays modernity extends into the practices of cultural do-it-yourself and recycling, into the invention of the everyday and the developments of time lived…' Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics, Les Presses du Reel, Jan 2003

The artists in this exhibition all isolate and experiment with the ordinary stuff of life. The works are intimate and revealing expositions, they foreground daily engagements commonly deemed insignificant and afford them legitimacy as meaningful experience.

Ben Booth presents lint held in place by clear contact. These works are the 'sheddings' from the clothes of an unknown number of anonymous individuals that have been tumbled and rubbed up against each other in the heat of industrial clothes dryers. Hair, dust, fabric, skin cells and all manner of other particles have been left behind and woven together. Booth speaks of this work as the 'threads that bind us'.

Grant Dales two images are ostensibly plain, easily recognised and categorised. While the apparent subject of Interior is a 'magic eye' poster and untitled a pile of stones, subject matter plays only a small part within a wider awareness of each picture's object-hood as an illusionistic device.

Laura Hill's sound work is a collection of found city ambiences and mechanical resonances. The work documents the unassuming background hum that we all passively absorb at one time or another, a rich layer of sound that on closer inspection displays tense, rich and complex textures.

Kylie Johnson's boyfriend lives in Sydney. Recently she recreated one of his dinner parties right down to inviting similar guests and consuming specific drinks at predestined times. Operating in a similar way to Luke Rhinehart's The Dice Man, in which Luke determines his actions by the roll of a die, Johnson's video, Additional Method documents how she was able to take a break from her own life by following someone else's instructions.

Di Klaosen bravely reveals her personal lived anxieties in her installations. Her materials either reference, or are the actual stuff, from the places and situations where her urban dilemmas have occurred. Bottles of lotions, tablets and fragrances are part of the bathroom installation Why do I do it? They are the readily accessible weapons of choice for most people, in the contemporary war on the aging process, the stresses of life and the quest for beauty.