ART FOR CHANGE'S SAKE
There are few birds that divide public opinion quite like the Australian White Ibis. Once a wetland regular, now an urban scavenger with a taste for chips and a knack for gatecrashing city life, the ibis has become something of an Australian cultural icon whether we like it or not.
WORDS BROOKE GIBBS
FOR ARTIST BRENDAN Penzer, the ibis is much more than a bin chicken. It is a muse, a social commentator, a political symbol and, occasionally, a convenient excuse for a good pun.
His latest exhibition, INFLUiZZY, developed during a residency at Tactile Arts, brings together 15 years of ibis-inspired thinking and making across printmaking, ceramics, sculpture, installation, performance and digital media. At its centre is iZZy iBiS, the alter ego that emerged from Penzer’s artistic practice and his long fascination with these strange, resilient birds.
The story began in 2011, when two very different events collided in Penzer’s community. One involved a campaign to have Australian White Ibis culled along Sydney’s Cooks River. The other was an anti-Islamic racist public artwork attracting widespread media attention.
Penzer responded through action and performance art, and somewhere along the way, an artist colleague bestowed upon him the name iZZY iBiS. The pun stuck. So did the bird.
“I’ve been fascinated by ibises since I first laid eyes on the strange looking creatures as a child,” he says.
That fascination has since developed into an expansive artistic inquiry into the relationships between ecology, culture and psychology. For Penzer, art isn’t simply about making something aesthetically pleasing. It’s a platform for questioning how we live, what we value and how we relate to the world and each other.
“I come to art as a platform for exploring these and other issues. Art for change’s sake, not art’s sake,” he says.
In exhibition iNFLUiZZY, the ibis becomes a feathered vehicle for exploring speciesism and anthropocentrism, while also drawing parallels with race relations, reconciliation and cultural change. The bird’s ability to survive and adapt in environments dramatically altered by humans becomes a particularly useful metaphor for resilience and difference.
And then there’s humour.
“I value humour highly. I think it provides entry points and connections into the themes and work with a degree of fun and subtlety. It provides a safe place to start a dialogue,” he says.
“Irony and paradox play a huge part in this body of work and that is consistent in my work at large. It’s serious, but I have fun with it.
“My art and the use of humour is not about ridicule or derision – it’s deeply serious. I don’t use the derogatory terms brandished regarding my subject matter, to the contrary. I question the ecological, environmental and cultural paucity of the colonisers that has led to this phenomenon."
His time in the Top End has added another layer to the work. Visitors encounter references to significant moments in Australia’s political and cultural history, from the Indigenous land rights movement to the recent referendum.
And while the White Ibis might get most of the attention, Penzer wants us to look a little closer. The Northern Territory is home to three ibis species – the familiar White Ibis, the mostly black Straw-necked Ibis, and the brown Glossy Ibis.
Penzer invites exhibition visitors to reconsider the birds we think we know and to question the assumptions we carry. And if you happen to have a little fun along the way? Well, Izzy would approve.
“I hope that my dedication to reconciliation, ecological, cultural and environmental wellbeing comes through, utilising humour as a crutch to elicit thought and reflection.”
iNFLUiZZY
WHEN FRI 11 - SAT 26 SEP
OPENING FRI 11 SEP | 6PM
AT TACTILE ARTS GALLERY
INFO tactilearts.org.au
