Tace Kelly & Kit Wise
Feel for the water
16
February 2017
16
Feb
2017
3
Mar 2017
Night Screen
Feel for the water
Tace Kelly & Kit Wise
16
February 2017
16
February
2017
3
March 2017
Night Screen
Originally made for the Head Above Water exhibition at Peninsula Arts Gallery in Plymouth (UK), Feel for the water considers the touch of the swimmer using the hands of different people who have swam the English Channel in recent years. ‘Feel for the water’ is a term frequently used by long distance swimmers about the ‘catch’ part of each stroke, where they learn to ‘feel’ the water on the palm of the hand as they pull through the water. It is difficult to achieve – swimmers describe it as a kind of sixth sense – and marks a point where their relationship with the water is enhanced. Ocean swimming is an action that involves a sensory knowledge, countering our usual reliance on the visual to orientate ourselves. The work came out of a larger collaborative project that explores Wise and Kelly’s shared interest in the experience of ocean swimming.
Originally made for the Head Above Water exhibition at Peninsula Arts Gallery in Plymouth (UK), Feel for the water considers the touch of the swimmer using the hands of different people who have swam the English Channel in recent years. ‘Feel for the water’ is a term frequently used by long distance swimmers about the ‘catch’ part of each stroke, where they learn to ‘feel’ the water on the palm of the hand as they pull through the water. It is difficult to achieve – swimmers describe it as a kind of sixth sense – and marks a point where their relationship with the water is enhanced. Ocean swimming is an action that involves a sensory knowledge, countering our usual reliance on the visual to orientate ourselves. The work came out of a larger collaborative project that explores Wise and Kelly’s shared interest in the experience of ocean swimming.
Kit Wise
After graduating from Oxford University and the Royal College of Art with an MFA in Sculpture, Kit Wise received the Wingate Rome Scholarship in Fine Art in 1999, to study at the British School at Rome. In 2001 he received a Boise Travel Scholarship, administered by the Slade School of Fine Art, for subsequent research in New York & Australia. Since moving permanently to Australia in 2002, Wise has received four Australia Council grants in the categories of Presentation & Promotion (as curator), Skills Development (Tokyo Studio Residency), New Work (Emerging) and New Work (Established), as well as grants and commissions from Arts Victoria, Arts Tasmania and the Besen Family Foundation. He completed his PhD at Monash University in 2012.Wise practices as an artist, art writer and curator. He has held 15 solo exhibitions in Australia, America and Italy, exhibited in group exhibitions in Australia, Taiwan, Korea, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Holland, and has published numerous articles, reviews, book chapters and catalogue essays including texts for Australian and international art journals such as Frieze, unMagazine and Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies.Recent solo exhibitions include The Sea, The Desert, The Stone, The Shell, Sarah Scout Presents (2014); Flood, Screen Space, Melbourne (2013); Arcadia, Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago (2012); Disaster, Australian Experimental Art Foundation (2011); Explosion at Sarah Scout, Melbourne (2010), Summertime at ACCA @ Mirka, Australia Centre for Contemporary Art, Tolarno Hotel (2009); Natural Disaster at Linden Centre for Contemporary Art (2008); Rhapsodia at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (2007); Superhappiness at CONICAL (2006) and Soujourner, Westspace (2005).In 2006 he was included in the major survey show Responding to Rome: British Artists in Rome, 1995 - 2005 at the Estorick Collection, London; in 2008 he presented video work at the LOOP ’08 film festival in Barcelona and at the Urban Screens ’08 international conference and exhibition at Federation Square, Melbourne; in 2009, he presented an animation at the International Film Festival, Rotterdam; in 2010, he presented a major commissioned work in Experimenta Utopia Now: International Biennial of Media Art, Melbourne which was later selected as the opening film of the 2010 Off and Free Film Festival, Korea; as well as a series of animations at Media Facades Festival Europe. His work was also selected for the 2009 Asian Art Biennial in Taiwan, at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts. In 2011, he received support from both arts victoria and the Besen Family Foundation to present a major new digital video work at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. In 2012, his work was screened at the Tate Modern, London, and in 2013 he held a two-person show at Galleria della Cortille in Rome. In 2014 he was part of an interdisciplinary team of artists, architects and scientists that developed a major architectural project for MONA, Tasmania, as part of The River Derwnet Heavy Metals Project. In addition, he has received commissions for public art works and specific projects from Wallace Cititraining, London (1999); the British School at Rome (2001); Arts Tasmania (2002); Experimenta (2008); and Linden Centre for Contemporary Art (2010).He is currently Associate Dean (Education) and an Associate Professor in Fine Art in the Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University, Australia; as well as the Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours Course Coordinator. He is represented by Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne.