Tephra
Interactive sound-sculpture installation
Concrete, glass, electro-formed bronze, sound.
Natasha Dubler & Caitlin Dubler
13 January - 28 April 2024
Penrith Regional Gallery, Lewer’s House
Curated by Nina Stromqvist
Video: Denis Beaubois
Photography: Maja Baska (plus stills from video by Denis Beaubois)
Tephra is a delicate shifting of light, sound and material, where the forces of erosion and deep time are combined with the sculptural and the sonic. Tephra is the first solo exhibition by Western Sydney artists and sisters, Natasha Dubler and Caitlin Dubler.
From the basalt-capped peaks of Mount Wilson and Mount Tomah, down to the Colo River, the artists trace the geological processes which continually shape and reshape the landscape. Bringing together their respective backgrounds in glass and music, to explore gestures of listening and touch, Tephra is an experiential and multisensory environment revealing unheard and unseen narratives embedded in these landscapes.
Fragmenting and layering are reflected in the artists’ experimental practice spanning fused glass, concrete, electroformed bronze and sound. Using printmaking techniques such as plating, resisting and masking on hand hammered bronze cymbals, a patina of the subterranean is formed, while the sounds of wind woven with cello evokes a sonic experience of slow erosion over time.
The tension between the artist hand and the naturally occurring are in constant play here, as fragments of sound and material encounters from the earth, are considered anew. Patterned concrete works transpose the Tessellated Pavements at Mount Irvine in the Blue Mountains, emitting sounds of the underground that crack and fracture, while dislocating time and place.
Surface creep of an eternal wind. Tremors from the underground. Rock and glassy particles scatter to form part of the geological strata. Tephra engages audiences of all ages in a multisensory experience, exploring local geologic histories on a molecular scale.
Exhibition text by Nina Stromqvist
Concrete
Emitting a rumble from deep within the Earth these patterned concrete works transpose the Tessellated Pavements at Mount Irvine in the Blue Mountains.
The cracks and fractures make visible the stresses from the underground while the susurration of wind recorded from the Mount Irvine landscape performs a sonic story of the shaping and shifting of surface erosion - an ancient process that precedes us and will continue long after we’re gone. Feel the rumble underfoot. Hold your ear to the surface.
Glass
These glass forms make perceptible the relationship between wind, water, and light. The atmospheres of place are made tangible, tracing the mineralogy of rock beds through colour and glass.
The presence of manganese blushes with shades of purple while iron tints green and blue. Cracks, grooves, holes, and textures trace the constant formation and reshaping of the geological strata.
Bronze
Combining music and craft traditions, hand-hammered bronze cymbals lend their form and anatomy to an immersive sound environment that abstracts their origins.
Sounds of wind recorded through sandstone and gumtrees are coloured by the resonant tendencies of the cymbals themselves, folding together the artist’s hand with grounding vibrations which cannot be heard with our ears alone. The sonic dialogue from bronze, to glass, reverberates and considers anew the material architecture of the gallery.
