COMPRESSION
Assemblages

Alex Asch and Mariana del Castillo

5 - 21 September 2024
Beaver Galleries, Deakin ACT

ALEX ASCH

I have always been drawn to weathered materials, to the iconic form-ply that is used to erect the concrete structures of our cities, to galvanised steel used to construct our rural buildings, to the painted signs of our roadways abandoned in tips, reclamation yards and rural properties across the Southern tablelands. In my studio with these gathered materials embedded with their histories of place replete with concrete residue, accidental marks of overuse and relentless weathering
I begin to create collages, shaping and moving the pieces into abstracted compositions, seeking to capture that scarred and vivid memory of landscape.

Alex Asch and Mariana del Castillo have close connections: migrants from the Americas, artists, educators, colleagues and husband-wife. Their approach to exploring and visually representing the landscape reveals itself in different mediums. At the core of Compression is a concern for the environment and the impact of nature on materials: the slow cycle of compression, extraction and erosion.

In 2021 both artists were invited by the University of Canberra to mentor and deliver arts for recovery workshops for the Regeneration program substantially funded by donations raised by Magda Zsubanski and Will Connolly. Regeneration is a collaborative response to complex traumas experienced by Australia’s rural communities from drought, floods and bushfires. While in the Wiradjuri country (Snow Valleys high country) they saw first-hand the devastation that the bushfires had on the landscape: enormous black hills, extended vistas and darkened valleys. In between workshops they began to sketch and photograph the vast landscape between the small towns of Batlow, Tumbarumba, Adelong and Tumut.

In 2023 both artists were invited back to deliver weekend workshops to 5 Ways Studio, Tumut and reconnect with the Snow Valleys community. The stark contrast of the landscape now in near flood showed the extremes of the Australian environment. Alex and Mariana have a collective determination to represent this visual space and to choose works for the exhibition that are in dialogue with one another. This exhibition focuses on the landscape between the Wiradjuri country (Snow Valleys) and Yorta Yorta country (Northern Victoria) and Wandi Wandian country (Shoalhaven region) and explores the transformations driven by climate change.