Over the past decade, Perth-based Martu artist Curtis Taylor has emerged as one of Australia’s leading contemporary artists.
His first solo exhibition, Untitled (Uura), at Perth Institute Of Contemporary Arts, brings together multiple streams of his practice including sculpture, installation, and film.
Curtis’ exploration away from his usual filmmaking and into sculpture and installations for this exhibition, has meant he’s been able to develop his abilities as an artist.
“It’s really exciting,” he says. “Within film, it’s more writing and editing and you get to see the whole process – it’s the same with this, but [in] working with other mediums, it’s new ground for me to see how change feels.
“Sculpture and making things with my hands, I haven’t done that for a long time, and it’s really rewarding in the end, but you make mistakes along the way. What I thought were mistakes turned out to be the things that [will] get shown.”
Like any artist, Curtis has a healthy dose of self-doubt. The themes for Untitled are language and the sense of self, established, Curtis says, with a lot of sub-context: “Certain works are centred around life and birth, reincarnation and all that stuff.”
Curtis Taylor, Nyunyjila –Tongues, 2018 - Image © Bewley Shaylor
Curtis’ interest in exploring new material and finding new ways to relay his personal journey stemmed from frustration. “A lot of people recognise you for something, and I just wanted to show I could work with other mediums and still get my story across, tell the story I wanted to tell. That’s just one other reflection.”
The exhibition has a heavy focus on language and storytelling across generations – indeed, Curtis’ own language could be interpreted as being told by these pieces – the language of his people and stories of his paternal grandfather, whom he had never met, helps Curtis shape not only his culture and heritage, but his work. “It came out of a curiosity for me, wanting to learn about this person who I’d never met in the flesh, but had heard stories, memories, from people who knew him.
“I really wanted to explore the language that was composed by him through his dreams and this other realm. We’re keeping a sense of that person alive by practising the songs he composed.
“I grew up from a young age learning the language through song, with wonderful teachers – my father, mother, grandfather, a lot of people I’ve crossed in my life so far – and I guess for me, working as an interpreter in the hospitals and courts, we’re still trying to find a relationship with each other.
Curtis Taylor, Nyunyjila – Tongues, 2018 - Image © Bewley Shaylor
“Interpreters are bringing back language terms used in these settings that for us, is foreign, so this [art] is a new and exciting place to be free with languages.”
Given the colour and the depth of tone in terms of the culture and language that Curtis is presenting, it seems odd that the exhibition should be called Untitled.
“I guess I agree,” he says. “But I didn’t see [any] need to put a title on it. Maybe I just ran out of time and got sick of it.”
Or maybe, Curtis is letting the work speak for itself, an idea with which he agrees, laughing.
“It came out of works that are untitled and have a story, the maker’s name [is] recognised but sometimes it’s not – I think it stemmed from that feeling, and maybe a little animosity, too.”
Spoken with the soul of a true artist.
