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Exhibition
Once there was there wasn’t
7 February - 3 March 2018

Join us for the opening of Svetlana Bailey’s latest exhibition Once there was there wasn’t on Wednesday 7 February from 6-8pm.

Artist Talk: Saturday 10 February at 3pm.

Svetlana Bailey supposes that objects, places, and events that occur in separate times and spaces can coexist psychologically. This coexistence is reconciled with photographs, which, although normally fixed to particular times, places, and stories, are nevertheless able to travel in boxes, or as mental images on overlapping currents.

Until the age of eight, Bailey’s childhood summers were spent at her grandmother’s house in the Russian countryside. It was an influential period in which she discovered the world on her own, where many things happened for the first time and her earliest memories were formed. Sixteen years ago her grandmother passed away and now the house stands empty. For this body of work, Once there was there wasn’t, Bailey returned to her grandmother’s empty house to examine those early impressions. Through this journey of return, she was transported in time, as if opening a time capsule. Here Bailey discovered layers of image fragments captured in stories, old objects, images in albums and magazines. They pointed to the invisible marks, the impressions and mental images that remain, and perhaps for this reason— besides the dust, spider webs and the thicket of birch and cherry trees that had enjungled the outside— the house did not seem abandoned.

Svetlana Bailey, Plane, from the series Once there was there wasn’t, 20 x 16 inch, pigment print, 2016

Using still life techniques, Bailey constructed installations within and around the house that included the objects that she found on location with photographs that she brought with her of her life after leaving Russia. She followed a similar process with images from her parents home in Germany and her own home in the US, constructing photographs that visualized times and places that are in reality far apart yet exist together psychologically. Similar to the act of carrying pictures in wallets or pendants, on coffee mugs or lock screens, displaying pictures in living rooms or as tattoos— an impulse for continuity, where separate events are rebroadcast into the present through a jumble of images.*

Svetlana Bailey was born in St Petersburg in 1984, and after the fall of the Soviet Union emigrated to Germany with her family. Commencing studies at FH Dortmund, Bailey moved to Australia to complete her BFA at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney. In 2016 Bailey graduated with an MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design. Since then she has completed residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine; the NARS Foundation in New York; the Atlantic Centre for the Arts in Florida; The Bundanon Trust, in Bundanon NSW and will soon complete a residency at The Mountain School of Arts in Los Angeles.

In 2017 Svetlana was the Winner of the Flash Forward Prize presented by The Magenta Foundation. More recently in 2018 she was awarded an Australia Council, Career Development Grant. Her most recent series of work Once there was there wasn’t has been exhibited as part of solo exhibitions at Filter Space in Chicago, and will be exhibited at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland later in 2018.

Svetlana Bailey currently lives and works between New York and Sydney.

*Modified extract from Svetlana Bailey’s MFA thesis and Filter Space exhibition catalogue.

Additional Information

Upcoming Exhibition

main gallery
Owen Leong
5 April - 27 April 2024

Previous Exhibition

main gallery
Hyun-Hee Lee
2 February - 24 February 2024
Svetlana Bailey_Bath, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_32 x 40 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Svetlana Bailey_Carpet, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_28 x 35 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Svetlana Bailey_Dad, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_28 x 35 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Svetlana Bailey_Fruit, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_12 x 15 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Svetlana Bailey_Glasses, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_20 x 25 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Svetlana Bailey_Hammock, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_50 x 40 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Svetlana Bailey_Koenigsrolle, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_28 x 35 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Svetlana Bailey_Plane, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_20 x 16 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Svetlana Bailey_Ski, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_36 x 45 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Svetlana Bailey_Spa, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_30 x 48 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Svetlana Bailey_Wedding, from the series Once there was there wasn’t_2016_42.5 x 34 inch_pigment print_edition of 5. Installation shot by Zan Wimberley. Installation shot by Zan Wimberley. Installation shot by Zan Wimberley. Installation shot by Zan Wimberley. Installation shot by Zan Wimberley. Installation shot by Zan Wimberley. Installation shot by Zan Wimberley. Installation shot by Zan Wimberley. Installation shot by Zan Wimberley. Installation shot by Zan Wimberley.