Jenna Lee, Flame Tree (Falling petals of the Poinciana), (Installation Detail), 2022, mixed media. Courtesy: the artist and MARS Gallery, Victoria.

The works presented in Old Flame explore fire, love and time as processes of regenerative transformation enacted upon colonial-settler Aboriginal word list books. Long obsessed with the duality of the destructive and healing property that fire can yield, this element has been applied to the paper in the forms of burning, mark making and as inspiration for natural forms woven and sculpted from paper. Presented in the show are also works that Lee loves deeply to create, referencing the flame and fire within.

Old Flame references both the ‘old’ cultural ways of using fire to maintain and heal, as well as the warm embers of passion, obsession and love with which Lee works with the language and paper presented in the show. Showing a mixture of works on paper, altered objects and paper weaving and installation this show is a love letter to the process, to her culture, to language and to the paper itself.

Opening: Tuesday 5 July, 6 – 8pm