YARRILA Arts and Museum is showing some bold summer exhibitions in a bid to stimulate and provoke audiences.
Open now is “CREATION”, the brainchild of contemporary artist Deborah Kelly, who claims to have started her own religion as a response to the lunacy of politics, greed and pandemic fever.
The multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary work is the subject of a documentary on ABC Compass exploring the Australian soul and various forms of spirituality.
Kelly told News Of The Area that, “CREATION is a manifestation of an apocalyptic, gothic, queer, climate-change, science fiction religion (or an art work in the form of a religion).”
She concedes the work is blasphemous, absurd and farcical, but remains unrepentant in her ambition to mimic the church.
A feature of the travelling exhibition is the visual animation shown in the CUBE, and its haunting representations somewhere between Bosch, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Donna Harraway’s Cyborg Manifesto.
What comes off as surrealistic is considered by the artist as ritualistic.
The jet black gallery walls are a statement in themselves and the hanging costumes are like disembodied spirits.
Speaking to the media, Kelly donned a length of fabric not unlike a Persian carpet and wrapped herself in what she called her “guru outfit” ready for an audience.
The CUBE beckoned and she threw off the artifice and stepped into the projection room, emboldened by her own visual montage.
CREATION is showing at YAM until 15 March 2026.
By KIM SATCHELL
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