Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, Inland Empire (2008)
Rosie Halsmith
Artists: Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley Work: Inland Empire (2008) Location: Kellerberrin, Western Australia
For their IASKA residency, Janet Burchill and Jennifer McCamley produced a solar-powered neon: light from light. This is an idea that the artists had been investigating for several years. The artists obtained sponsorship for the solar components needed to power the neon from an innovative, Perth-based renewable energy company (Solar Sales Pty Ltd.) The solar-powered neon, Inland Empire, was located at Kellerberrin Hill for a one-day event. As the sun went down, the light from the neon appeared brighter. The duration of the event was determined by the amount of energy that had been collected by the solar panels during the day. Following this, the neon work was then run from standard mains power and exhibited in the IASKA gallery.
About the artists: Since 1985 Burchill and McCamley have been frequent collaborators and have had numerous individual and collaborative solo exhibitions both in Australia and internationally. Their art practice interlaces feminist, psychoanalytic, filmic, semiotic and spatial concerns, with language, and the language of art, film and popular culture, central to their work. A major survey of their collaborative works, Tip of the Iceberg: Selected works 1985–2001, was held in 2001 at the University Art Museum, University of Queensland, and at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne. Recent solo projects included Neon 2005, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, and All That Rises Must Converge, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne. Recent group exhibitions include 21st Century Modern, 2006 Adelaide Biennial, Art Gallery of South Australia. Burchill and McCamley have both been awarded a number of international residencies including the Australia Council Studio, Paris, and the Künstlerhaus Bethanien Studio, Berlin, to Burchill; and the University of Sydney Power Studio, Paris, and the Australia Council Studio, Tokyo, to McCamley. They lived from 1992 until 1996 in Berlin, where they were jointly awarded the Berlin Senate Art Scholarship in 1995. They currently live and work in Melbourne.