Elizabeth Pulie

Elizabeth Pulie is a Sydney based artist who has been working with painting for a long time. The work's really taken an interesting development over recent years where she's directly engaging an idea about what happens when painting, or even art itself may be thought of a having lost it's critical meaning. There's a range of theories that came through in the late 20th century about the end of art. That art in terms of a modernist idea of one style or process succeeding that which preceded it, will somehow critically address, or reflect the conditions of its time. It's challenged in the late 20th century. It's partly challenged because all sorts of various styles and medium are now available to artists simultaneously, but it's also this idea that, in fact, maybe meaning inhabiting one particular mode of practise i.e., painting is really just no longer relevant or has a critical edge.

So Pulie's interested in that way of thinking but then she's also interested in what happens if you want to continue to make, if you want to continue to paint, if you want to continue to acknowledge or work out of those traditions but make work that has some place in the present. So one response is simply just to keep making of course and in the sense, what Pulie's done is move into this real focus upon the materiality of the work. So painting has started to move from being paint on a surface, or on a structure to being an interest in, to the art being an interest in the material of that structure and other materials and processes you can bring to bear on it.

So in a sense she's started moving into using processes such as embroidery, or other craft based processes, or processes that have the sort of connotation of craft rather than high art, or the domestic space rather than the professional high arts space etc. The works have a sort of strong formal element to them. They're based on exploring an idea and exploring a geometric form, exploring colour, and exploring process. They have this real, sort of therefore, really striking element to them. The work that's being made specifically for this exhibition, the title or the subtitle Cape for my Guru and it's important to note that what Pulie's doing now is the primary title for all her work, is simply a number. So rather than attempting to imbed too much meaning through language in the work they just simply have one work follows another, follows another, follows another.

They're numbered but then they do have these subtitles and that idea of cape is really important because this work started off with the idea of a three dimensional cape, or sort of body garment but something that's also ornamental to a certain degree. The artist has decided to let it fall back against the wall, so it has that, sort of, still connotation of a painting in a sense but it has all the detailing that you could almost imagine of a ceremonial garment. Although it's all abstract and you don't have a real sense of a particular time, or a particular period, or a particular fashion, style in any way whatsoever. It's highly stylized and it's really rich in colour. The associations of years have already brought to is really interesting from actually having its geometric segmentation, having associations with insect life or an actual body, the shell of a body through to a sort of science fiction sort of sense of it, or ornate priest, or priestess style garment.