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To The Promised Land
2 August, 2022 - 13 August, 2022
Margaret Gold
To The Promised Land
2 August – 13 August 2022
hours:
Tuesday – Friday: 12pm – 6pm
Saturdays: 12pm – 4pm
Tuesday and Friday evenings: 6pm – 8pm
admission: Free
They risk everything for a chance of freedom. How many boats are never seen. How many people are never fished from the sea.
Artist Statement
TO THE PROMISED LAND
I have heard it said that we are the uninvited. We are the unwelcome. We should take our misfortune elsewhere.
– Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini
They desperately fled the danger and horror of their homes, now deserted. They left with longing and loss for those who had to stay behind, for the promised land, not their own, far away and unwelcoming. The journey dangerous and frightening, in the rubber boats into which they were crammed, men, women and their children, whilst the waves mounted and their flimsy transport to freedom and safety, disintegrated beneath them. One can die in many ways. They are asylum seekers.
In my work I have tried to represent the danger, despair and lingering hope in the faces, caricatures of humanity.
I have chosen a combination of yacht sails with the rubber dinghies. At once symbols of lingering hope and creeping fear and despair. The hope remains in the sails as a propulsive force that with the wind, which exits, but cannot be seen.
They risk everything for a chance of freedom. How many boats are never seen. How many people are never fished from the sea.
In contrast to the imagery of asylum seekers we see in journalistic imagery presented through newspapers, journals and the news, this body of work presents my personal, emotional expression.
Margaret Gold
Support can be sort through:
Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Australian Red Cross
Foundation House and the Brigidine Asylum Seeker Project
*The artist has pledged a percentage of sales from this exhibition to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Founded in 2001, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) is Australia’s largest human rights organisation providing support to people seeking asylum.
The ASRC is an independent not-for-profit organisation whose programs support and empower people seeking asylum to maximise their own physical, mental and social wellbeing.
They champion the rights of people seeking asylum and mobilise a community of compassion to create lasting social and policy change.
The ASRC movement is proudly supported by a community of committed volunteers and supporters and assists around 7,000 people seeking asylum each year.
MARGARET GOLD C.V.
Born in Melbourne, Australia
1979 – 81 Studied at Richmond College in London
1982 – 84 Fine Arts degree at the Victorian College of the Arts, majoring in Sculpture and Painting
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2022 fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2018 fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2013 fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
2010 fortyfivedownstairs, Melbourne
SPAN Galleries, Melbourne
SPAN Galleries, Melbourne
Australian Galleries, Collingwood
Judith Pugh Gallery, Fitzroy
1990 Arden Street Gallery, North Melbourne
Selected Group Exhibitions
2019 Group Show – 45 Downstairs, Melbourne 20 x 20 cm
2018 Group Show – 45 Downstairs, Melbourne 20 x 20 cm
2017 45 at 45 – Exhibition 45 Downstairs Gallery, Melbourne
2014 WHO’s LOOKING AT YOU – Portrait Prize, Cambridge Studio Gallery
2011 Postcard Show – Linden Galleries, St. Kilda
2010 Exhibition – Chapman and Bailey Gallery – Belle Arti Prize
2007 Group Show, SPAN Galleries
Melbourne Art Fair – Exhibition Building
1998 Group Show – 45 Downstairs (anti-Grand Prix)
Fitzroy Gallery, Fitzroy
Drawing Exhibition – Raw Studios
1988 Tenth Mildura Sculpture Triennial
‘Sculpture ‘85’, World Trade Centre, Melbourne
‘Graven Images’, Art Gallery of Western Australia in association with Perth International Festival of the Arts, Perth W.A.
Group Show, Victorian College of the Arts
1981 Orleans House, London U.K.
Collected in London, Germany, U.S.A. and Australia
Publications: Tenth Mildura Sculpture Triennial ‘Graven Images’ Perth International Festival of Arts, W.A.