Arc and Toll

30 August – 30 September 2016

SMITH Studio

Arc and Toll builds upon on previous work documenting van der Ploeg’s passage to becoming a beekeeper. With the presence of certain symbols – a figure, bells, an arch, a veil, light – she weaves a narrative that responds to the movements and embodied knowledge drawn upon in the practice of beekeeping. The process becomes ritual, seeking to observe and hold.

The exhibition consists primarily of monotypes, chalk pastel and charcoal drawings and oil paintings on paper, as well as wood and metal sculptural objects. These visceral 3-dimensional elements interact with and contrast the flat planes of paper.

The keeper-figure embodies the archetypal observer, at once in a position of power and of dependence; it assumes a relationship with another, the ‘other’. In this case, the imagined swarm, a being or entity whose nature seems wholly opposite to the beekeeper herself. Between the beekeeper and the swarm, between the binaries of reason and the irrational, there exists a space of interaction. It is a realm of creative tension and communion that precedes or transcends the linearity of reason. The necessity to articulate this space lead van der Ploeg to the archway. The arch can be seen as a receptacle for this questioning – a space that literally transcends, extends, listens and echos. Two sides rising up to meet each other, co-dependent. An arc silent, to hold the toll of a songless bell.

It’s the same now, but now the movements are slower, articulated with gentle purpose. There is pain, venom moving with the toll of my heart. A single sting acted like an admonishment designed to humble me to the sensitivity our proximity demanded. To work with the bees, I have had to lose the sense of myself as a being distinct from them and yet keep enough distance that the tension of our proximity becomes constructive, a communion, allowing me to read them and respond to them without imposing myself on them. Continuing the practice, merging one motion with the next. Moving from your body’s knowledge, to become a receptacle in which and through which all can pass.

For installation views of this exhibition, click here.

Until sounds are murmurs
Monotype and oil on Fabriano
70 x 100

Toll of a husk
Oil paint on Hahnemuhle, canvas, brass bells

In offering
Wild pear wood carving

All of it
Chalk pastel on Saunders Waterford

Kneel low
Chalk pastel on Saunders Waterford

Between
Oil paint on Fabriano Rosapina
70 x 100

Shepherds’ Warning
Backscratch monotype on Fabriano

In Holding
Monotype and oil on Fabriano Rosapina

Within the patience of echoes
Chalk pastel on watercolour paper

The Way
Monotype and oil on Fabriano
70 x 100

Where it was left
Oil paint and chine colle on Fabriano Rosapina
70 x 100

Every point at which your body is touching the Earth
Monotype and oil on Fabriano
70 x 100