Streetlight: Meet Me There exhibits Deaf visual arts

The Streetlight: Meet Me There exhibition shines a light on the work of four Deaf visual artists.

‘Streetlight’ is a symbolic recognition of the importance of visibility for communication, counteracting the distorting and silencing effect that darkness has historically had on visual communication and access to our world, both built and natural. The works explore themes of connection- to nature, to ourselves, to each other.

Held at Elevator ARI the show opens to the public in collaboration with Danni Zuvela’s ORCHID HOUSE on the 10th of September, with the Official opening and Festival Launch on the 23rd September.

Artists

Katrina Garvey – Brisbane-based photographer Katrina Garvey’s images explore attachment and detachment, involving human and non-human interactions. Her newest collection responds to the need for connection to natural objects in a time of disconnection from other human beings. The Restriction series is an exploration of how the photographer’s perspective and experience of time, connection and what it means to be a living being has shifted in response to the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021.

Kai Gecso-Thorndycraft – Northern Rivers based deaf painter, graphic designer and street artist Kai Gecso-Thorndycraft has since a young age used art as a form of expression, learning to paint his world. He has communicated through a variety of genres and is inspired and nourished by the natural environment and plants that grow around him, or that he grows himself. Kai considers life as we know it to be an illusion. The beautiful chaos all around him is what is conveyed through his art in an entanglement of emotions that words, literally, cannot sometimes express.

Oliver Elliott – Olli Eliott was born in Canberra and moved to the Northern Rivers, New South Wales when he was four months old. At the age of twelve months he got meningitis, leading to the loss of his hearing. He began carving local timber at age ten when he received his first pocket knife. Later, when he was twenty-one he was involved in an accident that resulted in the loss of vision in his right eye. His values of preservation, conservation, sustainability and ethics were distilled into him by his parents, who were first generation protesters against the destruction of native forests. They helped create the World Heritage listed Nightcap National Park. He was five at the time and it holds strong memories.

Narelle Caldwell – Narelle Caldwell is a Deaf artist based in Lismore. Her work sheds light on her experiences as part of the Deaf community, discussing the communication, identity and iconography that is unique to Deaf culture. Working with ceramics, resin and paint to represent the most recognisable of signs “I-LOVE-YOU”. This sign is both powerful and positive; often used as a fond farewell, it is endlessly modifiable, easily recognisable and accessible to all. It’s all about connection and celebrating a collective cultural identity.