Gut Feeling

Gut Feeling draws together works from the Murray Art Museum Albury collection that offer a bodily experience of contemporary art and are connected through a network of visual or formal associations. In this way, the selection of works speaks to the way that collections are often built. That is to say that with established guiding principles, it is possible for intuition to be trusted and unanticipated connections between artworks can be revealed.

The exhibition was conceived around three new acquisitions that all have a very physical presence: D Harding’s hanging glass pieces refer directly to the artist’s body and have a remarkable physical presence. Justine Varga’s large scale photograph Lattice #9 appears like a dark mirror or a door. While Hany Armanious’ Body Swap is an actual mirror, inviting participation and the visual swapping of bodies with fellow visitors.

All these works engage minds only after affecting the body. What flows out of these artworks is a network of associations. They are mainly material or visual links – colours, forms, and mark making that connect one artwork to another. Which brings other reference points in to play – doubles, birds, vegetation – and regularly circles back to the body through the human scale of the pieces and the artist’s physicality in producing them.

In moving through these galleries we get to explore the collection intuitively, trusting a gut feeling.