Nicole Foreshew

Shining (forever)

I think it is important to grow, to resurrect, our connection to Ngurambang (Country) – our human relation to the earth. To grow what you can, to resurrect what has been taken. (1)

In long, sparkling prisms of light, Nicole Foreshew’s Dreaming (the weight of collective crimes) (2023) rises into the air. Made from solidified plant oils, each triagonal form shines with embedded mica and tiny trapped bubbles. A path to the celestial, an evolving Dreaming. Gleaming. Her work charts a course between earth and the infinite.

As a Wiradjuri woman, Foreshew brings an awareness of place together with cultural knowledge of earth, minerals, and plants, drawing upon forms of learning which are often passed on from family and kin. Foreshew links earth and the human body in a practice encompassing photography, sculpture, video, and textiles. She has developed a material language tracing cycles of growth and renewal, as well as the deep history of her Country both in Central Western New South Wales and closer to Sydney.

Foreshew seeks to create new forms to meet contemporary needs, to nurture processes of healing and truth-telling grounded in ancient knowledge. How do we reach truth together, when the cycles and layers of trauma now run so deep? How do we ensure that we allow ourselves to feel? How do we acknowledge the missing of the last two centuries – as well as the many lives cut short, potential unrealised? How can we be aware, but not crushed by this? How do we reshape the precious resources of land and knowledge to generate new energy?

Dreaming is shown alongside a small companion image, Run (like you have never done) (2023). Together, the paired works in the installation seek to acknowledge and rise above the weight of Australia’s history of colonisation and violence. Whilst they can be understood to do so very broadly, they were made in response to a recent, deeply distressing incident experienced by Foreshew’s extended family involving the justice system. It has been more than 30 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody was tabled; nevertheless, fear and loss of human potential continue. Both components of the installation relate to this particular event. Run, where we can discern a dog’s mouth and sharp incisors, hints at what occurred.

There are many reasons for silence – and different kinds of quiet. In past works, such as Remain with me (2015), Foreshew has wrapped small bundles in fabric and placed them into the earth on Country over extended periods. The bundles are later exhumed and exhibited; what is within is not revealed. We sense intimacy, tenderness, and care. Close family and the Ancestors. A very specific and precious space is made for what cannot be revealed. Here, too, in these works, Dreaming and Run, in a different way.

Circling this absence, from bright moments just before the darkest:

Sometimes he would leave
Life on the ground
And rise up, following
A path of light

Travelling, on the
shining, high
From earth to stars
Lifting, hoping

Free. On the sands of the riverbed.

(1) Conversation between the artist and author, 10 May 2017, and email between the artist and author, 21 November 2022.