SUE PEDLEY
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Installations 1990-2000
    • Quarrying Memory 2000
    • The Convict and the Jew 1999
    • Spinifex 1999
    • Drawing on Rock 1998
    • Listening to Clara, Ethel and Ada 1997
    • Under the Pier 1996
    • Humidity 1995
    • The Intertidal Zone 1991
    • Combing 1990
    • The Element Orange 1990
  • Installations 2001-2020
    • Manly Dam Project, Manly Art Gallery and Museum 2019
    • Patches of Light - Tasmania 2019
    • Tracing Water - Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2018
    • Rolling Musical Screech - Bankstown Art Centre - 2017
    • Orange-Net-Work 2017
    • Patches of Light - SCA Gallery 2015
    • Birch Bridge - Norway - 2014
    • Home Garden 2012
    • Copper Ships - Tin Sheds Gallery 2011
    • Harmonica - Setouchi Art Triennial - Japan 2010
    • Blue Jay Way 2007
    • Spare Room 2007
    • Haze - Echigo Tsumari Triennial - Japan - 2006
    • In Tray 2006
    • Sound of Bamboo 2003
    • Sound of Bamboo 2002
    • Sound of Lotus 2001
  • Works on paper
    • Sonic Pressure 2020
    • Orange-Net-Work 2017
    • Lacuna 2017
    • Blueprint 2016
    • Patches of Light - water colours - 2015
    • Sound Lines - drawings- 2014
    • Harvest - monoprints - 2012
    • Monoprints - 2012
    • Sounding - collages - 2011
    • cyanotypes - Porifera Portraits - 2005
    • Cyanotypes 2000 - 2007
    • Humidity - drawings - 1995
    • Rolling Musical Screech-cyanotypes
  • Essays
    • Anne Finnegan
    • Jacqueline Millner
  • Contact

Quarrying Memory  Gallery 4A  Sydney 2000

Picture
wool, nails, gypsum, 450 x 30 cm
Picture
Picture
Picture
cyanotype, 100x 180cm
In Quarrying Memory  Sue Pedley continues her subtle investigation into the process of art-making, playing with its perennial materials, light and space, and exploring the potential overlaps between sound and visual representation. 

The installation comprises two elements. Large, sensuous prints of various intensities of blue are aligned on one wall to mimic the row of windows in Pedley's studio from whose filtered light they took their form. On the facing wall, Pedley has transcribed the sound-waves of a jackhammer by weaving her trademark fine orange wool across a matrix of nails. The prints are cyanotypes, made by exposing paper treated with light-sensitive emulsion directly to sunlight for different durations and on different occasions throughout the day, throughout the year, in Pedley's studio. 

The sound map of the jackhammer is made by first digitally recording the ambient sound from Pedley's studio—Pedley lives in inner Sydney and is constantly subject to the irruptions of building developments in close proximity. The recording is then fed into a software program and transformed into a graph of sound-waves, which is in turn drawn up and woven into a jagged lines directly onto the gallery wall. 

In much of her work, Pedley attempts to give material presence to duration, either through performance—as in the occasions when she has constructed a work throughout the time of an exhibition—or through gestures which draw attention to time-dependent processes.

Picture



In effect, time is the predominant content of both elements of Pedley's installation. The cyanotypes literally record time: the longer the exposure, the deeper the hue. The woven wall-piece transposes sound in a way akin to a musical score: the essence of the music is its performance in time; as we read the music off the page we experience it temporally. Similarly, we experience the jackhammer's rumblings and grunts through reading this 'score', moving along its surface, witnessing its trembling responses to our movement.



Jacqueline Millner
This is an extract of a review first published in Like, 2000.

  • Home
  • Bio
  • Installations 1990-2000
    • Quarrying Memory 2000
    • The Convict and the Jew 1999
    • Spinifex 1999
    • Drawing on Rock 1998
    • Listening to Clara, Ethel and Ada 1997
    • Under the Pier 1996
    • Humidity 1995
    • The Intertidal Zone 1991
    • Combing 1990
    • The Element Orange 1990
  • Installations 2001-2020
    • Manly Dam Project, Manly Art Gallery and Museum 2019
    • Patches of Light - Tasmania 2019
    • Tracing Water - Echigo Tsumari Art Triennial 2018
    • Rolling Musical Screech - Bankstown Art Centre - 2017
    • Orange-Net-Work 2017
    • Patches of Light - SCA Gallery 2015
    • Birch Bridge - Norway - 2014
    • Home Garden 2012
    • Copper Ships - Tin Sheds Gallery 2011
    • Harmonica - Setouchi Art Triennial - Japan 2010
    • Blue Jay Way 2007
    • Spare Room 2007
    • Haze - Echigo Tsumari Triennial - Japan - 2006
    • In Tray 2006
    • Sound of Bamboo 2003
    • Sound of Bamboo 2002
    • Sound of Lotus 2001
  • Works on paper
    • Sonic Pressure 2020
    • Orange-Net-Work 2017
    • Lacuna 2017
    • Blueprint 2016
    • Patches of Light - water colours - 2015
    • Sound Lines - drawings- 2014
    • Harvest - monoprints - 2012
    • Monoprints - 2012
    • Sounding - collages - 2011
    • cyanotypes - Porifera Portraits - 2005
    • Cyanotypes 2000 - 2007
    • Humidity - drawings - 1995
    • Rolling Musical Screech-cyanotypes
  • Essays
    • Anne Finnegan
    • Jacqueline Millner
  • Contact