Transfer Linen

2022

On Turrbal and Jagera land

Webb Gallery, South Bank

Works on paper, transfer paper, and linen by Zuzana Kovar.

Transfer Linen utilises unstable materials to explore the transfer of matter from one body or space to another. Through such an exploration, it seeks to explore the heterogeneous and volatile nature of bodies and spaces, as well as all other entities generally. The exhibition consists of four works.

transfer linen

The first of these are a series of domestic objects/ artefacts sewn from a combination of transfer paper and linen. These domestic artefacts, (hankerchiefs, bed set and quilt) are at once familiar artefacts that one comes into direct contact with on a daily basis, however which upon contact given the material qualities of transfer paper, render the exchange of matter between body and object explicit, whether through the artefacts making or their use.

chalking floors

The second work, is a chalk drawing created in-situ onto the gallery floor prior to the opening of the exhibition. This work equally takes the form of a domestic artefact - an entry mat. Influenced by the practice of ‘chalking floors’ from the 19th century, the chalked artefact proposed here serves to provide an immediate and unavoidable transfer of matter as one enters and moves around the gallery.

chalk line

The third work utilises a builder’s chalk line reel to create a series of line markings on the gallery wall. The line markings, which accrue during the exhibition, serve to mark time through the gradual accumulation of chalk.

written matter

The final work is an ongoing collection of lived matter transfer. Begun in 2013, material exchanges between various bodies; human, canine and spatial among others, have been documented through brief anecdotes. Through these written anecdotes, the still largely passive nature of spaces and objects, along with their typically fixed and idealised documentation is destabilised, and the intertwinement of bodies foregrounded.