Shotgun 10: Galileo Chew Chew
Georgia Lucy
Opening: 5.30pm Friday 20 October
Artist talk: 3.30pm Saturday 4 October
Closing: Galileo Good Gig, 1pm Sunday 19 November
21 October–18 November 2023
Contemporary Art Tasmania
New work, industry access, critical engagement – Shotgun 10 culminated in Galileo Chew Chew, an ambitious kinetic installation.
Enjoy this trip
Enjoy this trip
And it is a trip
Countdown is progressing[i]
Welcome to a world where timelines blur and peripatetic interests intersect, intertwine, disappear, and re-emerge into a never-ending evolution – this is the kaleidoscopic vision of Georgia Lucy. In the exhibition titled “Galileo Chew Chew” at Contemporary Art Tasmania, mash-ups drawn from art, music, culture, trash and life in general are reconfigured with no clear lines of distinction or priority. They are all equal. This is the medium. Eclectic bowerbird or gleaner meets passionate unfiltered observer with an occasionally elliptical sense of humour. There is no recycling. There is no need as detritus is reused, and there is no politically correct agenda, hidden or otherwise, nor any convenient carbon crediting. No buying and trading waivers, nor any favours. What you need is usually free, and you just need to want it.
Harmful elements in the air
Symbols clashing everywhere[ii]
Make no mistake, Georgia Lucy’s head is not in the clouds, like some millennial cosmic hippy waving a diaphanous lavender scarf and hoping for the best. She’s fluid like quicksilver, disruptive and harder to pin down. More like some sort of post-punk celebrating the good, the bad and the frightening. No patronising placebos, Band-Aids for burst arteries or misplaced nostalgia recalling “The Sweet By and By” with vague promises, ineffectual support, faux goals, and ersatz commitments. It’s absurdist theatre tackling blue-sky thinking and running with it. Unhampered by rigid rules and the desperate need to please, it is more like if you can think it, you can do it. Anything to disrupt audiences from their complacency or apathy and have them face the real situation as the artist sees it. To poke the bear. This message is not one of doom and gloom or half-baked pies in the sky either. It’s not even telling you what to think or which side to take – it’s a challenge to play and play well.
–Catalogue excerpt, H.R.Hyatt-Johnston, Shotgun 10 mentor and writer
Read full essay →
[i] Pascal Gabriel, Miles Gregory, Mark Moore, 1988, “Overture: Theme From S’Express.” Lyrics Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp., Sony/ATV Music Publishing (UK) Limited, May Twelfth Music, Angel & Maverick Llp, Kobalt Music Services, Australia.
[ii] John Gareth McKay, Morris Kenneth Ian, Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, 1978, “Hong Kong Gardens.” The Scream, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Polydor Records, UK.
Georgia Lucy is an experimental multidisciplinary artist engaging in the aesthetics of risk. She works with pre-existing forms (images, objects and sound), architectures, systems and behaviours and reinvigorates them with humour, challenging audiences to see the transformative potential in the things that surround us.
Georgia Lucy first came to Lutruwita/Tasmania to play the lead in the Mary McKillop musical at Falls Art Village, Falls Festival, 2011. She returned again later that year to deliver a bag of fundraised cash to the environmental protestors in the Florentine Valley and shortly after relocated to the island from Mulumbinba/Newcastle, NSW. She commenced a Bachelor of Fine Art at the University of Tasmania, School of Art in the same year and attained her degree in 2021.
Georgia Lucy has been in the Art/ Punk band All the weathers (with Callum Cusick and Gigi Lynn) since 2014, co-directed (with Callum Cusick) the Fern Tree Arts Hall from 2014 – 2022 and has co-facilitated Hobart Little Band events, also since 2014. Recent projects include: Ability to Create: Elevate, an all-ability artists project, City of Hobart (2023); Tidal.22: City of Devonport Award, Devonport Regional Art Gallery; Home | Land, group exhibition curated by Alexandra Hullah, Contemporary Art Tasmania, Hobart; Good Video, Good Night at Good Grief, ARI, Mona Foma festival, Hobart, (2022); Offsite, The Page as a Site: A Publication, Constance ARI, Hobart (2020) and TIME HORIZONS, Sawtooth ARI, Launceston (2019).
Shotgun is an awarded opportunity that supports selected Tasmanian artists through a customized program of high-level industry access, critical engagement and the production of new work. Shotgun 10 was awarded to Georgia Lucy with the program delivered through critical discussions, informal conversations, interstate visits, skill-sharing sessions, production assistance and the provision of a CAT Studio. Shotgun 10 culminated in Galileo Chew Chew, an ambitious kinetic installation of work developed through the program.
Shotgun sets out to enable development – that may take a number of years for individuals to self-organise – to occur over a short and concentrated period. Shotgun 10 was supported by main mentors Helen Hyatt-Johnston and Stuart Houghton who immersed themselves in Georgia Lucy’s world. The program also included: Tony Garifalakis, Callum Cusick, Jason James and Robert O’Connor. Shotgun is curated by Kylie Johnson.
Related links
Journal #35: Georgia Lucy Slagz Gals by Georgia Lucy →
