Carolyn V Watson, Thick with belief and the process of doing, 2021. Archival fixative, gouache, watercolour, graphite on birch panel, 52.5 x 42.5cm. Courtesy: the artist and Anthea Polson Gallery, Gold Coast.

Carolyn V Watson‘s new body of work, let’s play pretend, extends her ongoing inquiry into how one might “activate the audience’s curiosity by inverting the familiar and thereby offer new readings of the known”. Beyond a childhood game connotation, the exhibition’s title arose from her research into the philosophy of the Russian writer, Viktor Shklovsky. His 1917 treatise, Art as Devise, expounds on the notion of ‘defamiliarisation’ in the creation and presentation of art forms. “Art exists so that one may recover the sensation of life,” he declared.

Opening details: Saturday 1 May, 4 to 6pm at the Tedder Avenue Gallery.

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