Description
Vanessa BARBAY
New South Wales
‘Shadow Self (Autumn Leather Jacket 2024)’ 2025
pipeclay, oil, bitumen, gesso, aquarelle, rabbit skin glue & leather jacket on canvas
40 x 67cm framed
‘Shadow Self’ refers to the shroud of a leather jacket found in our shared seascape Vincentia. A shroud is the stain created by the decomposition of a body on canvas. Beyond the surface where shards of light penetrate the water, a dessicated leather jacket relic is caught almost kissing its shadow reflection. Nearby floats its equally withered underside, while the partial tail of a catfish lies beneath. Painted almost entirely with bitumen, each dried dead husk reflects the oil-soaked culture that oozes into their submerged sacred space – a comforting field of local pipeclay. The shroud set installation site for my 2024 animal memorials was Tomboye in the temporate southern tablelands of NSW. This leather jacket decomposed in autumn alongside a lace monitor, pardalote, laughing dove and rainbow lorikeet. Wind blew dirt around the body drawing its distinct silhouette and enabling bodily fluids to evaporate quickly. The eye and pectoral fins impress delicate marks on the sandy shape.
