Toward HOME
The Old Fire Station Gallery
Redcliffe Art Society
6 – 31 August 2025
Artist Statement:
Exploring the performative nature of farm life, rituals of caring for home and land are captured through photography and installation. Regenerative agriculture techniques employed on my family farm signal a stewardship of the land, and awe for the power and energy of nature and natural forces faced daily. I’ve discovered matrilineal links to farming in Australia dating back to the late 1800s, thus the transformative power of fire and water can be viewed as metaphors for the emotional intensity that fuel human relationships, connections and shared responsibilities across time.
Artworks:
A Woman’s Mood
2025
Photographs, projection, antique frames, foraged river driftwood, poem
Fire connects ancestor and artist across time, uncovering shared and profound sensibilities through the generations. A Woman’s Mood references the haunting words from the poem of the same name by Grace Jennings Carmichael, a renowned early colonial poet and my great aunt. Writing under the pseudonym Jennings Carmichael, her poem speaks of love, longing, loss, tragedy and hope. In this collaboration, a sense of drama and the transformative power of fire emerges through upscaled iPhone photos. Integral to regenerative agriculture practices, fire is used to control invasive species, and as a tool of nourishment by restoring and maintaining biologically healthy soil; critical needs under climate change. Despite the enormous losses borne by the Australian bush since colonisation, a sense of hope for the future remains.
A Woman's Mood
By Jennings Carmichael
c1895
I THINK to-night I could bear it all,
Even the arrow that cleft the core,—
Could I wait again for your swift footfall,
And your sunny face coming in at the door.
With the old frank look and the gay young smile,
And the ring of the words you used to say;
I could almost deem the pain worth while,
To greet you again in the olden way!
But you stand without in the dark and cold,
And I may not open the long closed door,
Nor call thro’ the night, with the love of old,—
“Come into the warmth, as in nights of yore!”
I kneel alone in the red fire-glow,
And hear the wings of the wind sweep by;
You are out afar in the night, I know,
And the sough of the wind is like a cry.
You are out afar—and I wait within,
A grave-eyed woman whose pulse is slow;
The flames round the red coals softly spin,
And the lonely room’s in a rosy glow.
The firelight falls on your vacant chair,
And the soft brown rug where you used to stand;
Dear, never again shall I see you there,
Nor lift my head for your seeking hand.
Yet sometimes still, and in spite of all,
I wistful look at the fastened door,
And wait again for the swift footfall,
And the gay young voice as in hours of yore.
It still seems strange to be here alone,
With the rising sob of the wind without;
The sound takes a deep, insisting tone,
Where the trees are swinging their arms about.
Its moaning reaches the sheltered room,
And thrills my heart with a sense of pain;
I walk to the window, and pierce the gloom,
With a yearning look that is all in vain.
You are out in a night of depths that hold
No promise of dawning for you and me,
And only a ghost from the life of old
Has come from the world of memory!
You are out evermore! God wills it so!
But ah! my spirit is yearning yet!
As I kneel alone by the red fire-glow,
My eyes grow dim with the old regret.
O when shall the aching throb grow still,
The warm love-life turn cold at the core!
Must I be watching, against my will,
For your banished face in the opening door?
It may be, dear, when the sequel’s told
Of the story, read to its bitter close;
When the inner meanings of life unfold,
And the under-side of our being shows—
It may be then, in that truer light,
When all our knowledge has larger grown,
I may understand why you stray to-night,
And I am left, with the past, alone.
Adaptation: view through a window
2025
Cyanotype on paper, thread, staples, paper clip, painter’s tape
The windows in the kitchen are made from non-tempered glass – a particularly fragile and dangerous material typical of interwar Queenslander houses. Disfiguring injuries caused by jagged spears of shattered and falling glass were once commonplace. Preparing these windows for a tropical cyclone required careful application. Alluding to the variety of ways my intergenerational household will need to adapt to life in the Anthropocene, forms, both tightly bound and loosely scrunched and wiped with dirt, are nestled together. The mark of the human hand evident in the removal of the painter’s tape, applied for safety. Outside, the raging storm was recorded onto blueprints, recovered over several days from strewn positions in the yard, and repaired. The unexpected intensity of the experience leaves an indelible mark and prompts a sense of urgency for structural change.
Exhibition Statement:
Toward HOME brings together five artists whose works explore home as memory, body, history, family and longing. From ancestral connections to domestic critique, sensory experience and emotional terrain, each artist moves toward a different vision of what home is—or could be.
Through a multi-disciplinary approach, the works reflect on comfort and discomfort, presence and absence, rootedness and restlessness. Toward HOME is not about arriving but about searching—the journeys that shape a sense of belonging.
Acknowledgement:
This body of work was supported with a Continue Creating grant as part of City of Moreton Bay's RADF program. The Regional Arts Development Fund is a partnership between the Queensland Government and City of Moreton Bay to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
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The Exhibition Statement [Toward HOME] informs us that the five artists exhibiting have explored home as memory, body, history, family, and longing. The Dictionary informs us that home is a noun and means one’s place of residence, a place of origin, or a familiar or usual setting or the focus of one’s domestic attention. It can be a structure of some sort, a place we are homesick for, a destination, a place we may be sent to when we get old but most particularly our body is our home. Perhaps at some time you have said I do or don’t feel at home in my body or home is where the heart is. To have a home is no longer a given. Home can be many things. You will find that the artists have dug deep to find what each considers home.
None of the artists have considered home in a prosaic way, rather their works explore home as lived experience. Mel Brady’s work shows us the minutiae of her daily life, her visual diaries, a comfy chair, a sprig of rosemary to carry home around with her, and the rituals that she finds comforting. Amanda Gardner’s work shows home can be a place of both sanctuary and subversion. Her use of vintage Ladies Home Journals speak directly to women’s lives. Kylie Harries’ work explores the ancestral and the precarity of a home when disaster strikes. I urge you to read her great, great Aunts poem “A Woman’s Mood”. Rachel South’s work explores the body as home which holds experience and memory within. Her clever use of Colourbond on which she has painted hair is a roof over a roof. For Sarah O’Neill home is an interior head space where she searches for clarity. Her photograph This Must Be the Place references the first line in a Talking Heads song “Home is where I want to be, pick me up and turn me around” so apt for this exhibition.
Each of the five artists are from the Moreton Bay Region and have either received awards, been finalists in significant competitions or received commissions and grants. Toward Home is another feather in your caps and I congratulate Mel, Amanda, Kylie, Rachel, and Sarah on a fascinating and thought-provoking exhibition.
Words by Dr Deborah Eddy BFA Hons. DVA
Volunteer Gallery Manager Redcliffe Art Society
Photo acknowledgment: Photo courtesy of the artist & @mrsmelindaedwards
