Artereal Gallery is pleased to announce that Shoufay Derz has been selected for inclusion in Installation Contemporary, a curated section of the upcoming art fair Sydney Contemporary.
Curated by Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Rachel Kent and Assistant Curator Megan Robson, Installation Contemporary presents an exhibition of ambitious and large-scale artworks throughout the Carriageworks precinct.
Installation Contemporary 2017 brings together 15 contemporary Australian and International artists working across a range of mediums from painting and sculpture, drawing and ceramics, through to installation and video. Included within this program are two of Shoufay Derz’s works: 1024 full stops and King for a day (stripped).
Shoufay Derz
1024 Full Stops
2015
Copper, 1024 holes, quills, liver of sulfur
240cm x 240cm x depth variable
Absence, abandonment, emptiness and loss – and ways to make such abstract concepts visible, have long been a focus of the artist’s practice. She conjures with the expression of seeming intangibles, with stages of transition and transformation as she interweaves her own personal narrative and experience to make manifest universal aspirations, fears and quests for meaning.
The warm luminosity of copper with the allusion to ‘copperplate’, to enlightenment, glows from the ground of ‘1024 full stops’ formed by two copper sheets leaning like ancient tablets against the gallery wall. The ‘stelae’ are pierced at intervals with so many ‘full stops’, holes for white feather quills; each quill a symbolic voice – but many miss their marks, lying fallen.
King for a day (Stripped)
2015
hand stitched silk thread (dyed with pomegranate skins), king sized bed sheet
260 x 274 cm
My father’s final sleep was unexpectedly at home and, by chance, in gold satin sheets. I was struck at the time by the emptiness of the bed, but also the creases that marked his presence. Years later, this idea has come from a secret partner image (not exhibited), I took of his slept-in sheet just after his physical presence was removed.”
Shoufay Derz’s work King for a day (Stripped) repurposes a golden satin bed sheet with the word ‘stripped’ woven through it using pomegranate-dyed hand-stitched silk thread. This poetic installation is a meditation on the passing of her father, whose final sleep was at home in gold satin sheets.
In making this work, Shoufay Derz chose to incorporate handwriting appropriated from an old love letter the artist’s father wrote to her mother in the 1970’s. In the love letter, the artist’s father intended to write about his new lounge suite as ‘striped’ but misspelt it as ’stripped’.
The artist elaborated: “I used a ‘love potion’ of pomegranate skins, fermented for over six years in my studio, to dye the silk thread. Surprisingly, this transforms white silk into a shimmery gold colour. I used this thread to hand stitch the hand written word ‘Stripped’ upon a King size gold mulberry silk sheet. I call the piece King for a Day”. “
My father’s final sleep was unexpectedly at home and, by chance, in gold satin sheets. I was struck at the time by the emptiness of the bed, but also the creases that marked his presence. Years later, this idea has come from a secret partner image (not exhibited), I took of his slept-in sheet just after his physical presence was removed.”
Sydney Contemporary runs from 7-10 September at Carriageworks, Sydney.