Olive Bly pucker(ing) map((p)ing) Secondhand textiles, framed in secondhand stretcher bars60 x 75 x 3 cm$800 olive bly (Tangata Tiriti, Pākehā) is an outer-disciplinary artist of european descent from Aotearoa (New Zealand), currently based in Naarm (Melbourne, so-called Australia). Her work traverses a variety of mediums, finding synaesthetic links between all kinds of reference points. She adopts playful creative philosophies which blend the naive with the theoretic, underpinned by thematic cyclicality.olive sees her works as diagrams which point to multiplicities of intention and interpretation. She is particularly interested in using recycled, found, and secondhand materials in order to explore modes of creation which promote sustainability: imagining new futures which expand the horizons of the (im)possible.Last year, while she was travelling overseas, she collected secondhand textiles from op-shops and markets. Sketching shapes with a needle and thread quickly became a habitual, tactile practice. Without a hoop, she started mark-making with thread onto this square cloth, embracing the puckering and warping texture.As a map, this piece is an expansion of overlapping sensations, sense-memories, and concepts. With the two pairings of red & blue, and black & white, we are encouraged to think beyond the things we call "opposites." There is a great multiplicity of meanings among the things we call "true" and "false," or, "big" and "small." As we face a headwind of crises around the world, it seems that we need to learn to operate further than "black & white" thinking if we are to collaborate effectively in our communities and societies. olive prompts us to feel something beyond the adage, "two things can be true at once," looking into a field of necessary diversity, of a contradictory whole. Shipping is not included in the online artwork purchase price. Artworks currently on exhibition can be collected from the gallery at 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne VIC 3000 once the exhibition has concluded. Collection is available during gallery hours: Tuesday to Friday, 12–7pm, and Saturday, 12–4pm. If you are unable to collect your purchase in person, fortyfivedownstairs can arrange a shipping quote. Please contact us at [email protected] to discuss available options.
