Sydney Exhibition

Emily Ebbs & Clementine McIntosh
Runs 17 – 27 March 2022
Opens Wednesday 16 March / 6 – 8pm

Internal to External explores the process-driven practices of emerging artists Emily Ebbs and Clementine Belle McIntosh, recent graduates of the National Art School.

Ebb’s and McIntosh’s painting practice focus on the staining of raw canvas and found materials, using plant based dyes and synthetic pigments. The exhibition is an immersive installation, amalgamating the materialisation of raw internal and external moments felt by the artists. We draw focus to the physicality of the paintings, with the audience able to brush up against the fabric, sit in contemplation within it and bear witness to the atmospheric, meditative and soft compositions the canvases hold. The paintings themselves utilise intuitive mark-making and site specific processes to translate McIntosh’s conversations in place and Ebb’s internal psychological encounters.

Artist Statements

Clementine Belle McIntosh is an emerging rural artist based in Gilgandra NSW, home to the Wiradjuri, Kamilaroi and Wailwan traditional owners. McIntosh works in a process-driven practice, using phenomenological perspective to converse with the landscape, holding an awareness for its health. Using raw natural fibres and plant based dyes, she stains, suspends, buries or shoots her work, creating performative events for ecological cycles to unfold on the surfaces. These site specific processes challenge the formal conventions that distance painting from its subject, allowing it to exist unrestrained. What remains is the materialisation of raw moments felt in place and subtle pictorial cues to the experiences themselves.

Emily Ebbs’ process based practice evokes the emotional residue of childhood trauma through the staining of unprimed canvas or drop sheet with an acrylic wash. The stain penetrates right through the canvas, connects it, stains show signs of something marked or discoloured that is difficult to remove where she finds it is closely linked to the idea of trauma. It is the staining of canvas or drop sheet, the tearing up of unfinished or unwanted works, collaging of fabrics and mark making that are impulsive and improvised that make up her process. Her pastel colour palette allows the finished piece to have an airy and meditative mood as a way of showing the other side of trauma by psychologically working through past events.