Art Opening: Suspended Arrival

Caitlin Reilly's Suspended Arrival exhibition, on now at Elizabeth de Brabant Art Center, charts her experience moving from her native Australia to Shanghai.

The creation and evolution of the series of work has spanned more than two years.  Working with charcoal, erasers and washcloths, Reilly draws and wipes away her markings, feeding fleeting reactions and dreams into her work to create a visual journal of her "understanding of a continuing transformative experience of place".

In the mix are older pieces that have been adapted into the new work in the shape of small books, which represent how she felt when she first came to Shanghai. These older pieces tie together a history that celebrates her ongoing arrival in China, which we, the visitors, are invited to share by flipping through the small books and examining her charcoal drawings.

The exhibition contains a mixture of larger and smaller work in a colour palette limited to shades of grey and red. Some drawings give an impression of looking through bars at something, whereas others depict numbers, or more traditional sketches.

Reilly came to Shanghai from Byron Bay under a year ago. She says she is less interested in the question of whether she has truly arrived in Shanghai yet, than the idea that “we’re always moving”, “free falling”.

Until December 15,  Elisabeth de Brabant Art Center, 299 Fuxing Xi  Lu  near Huashan Lu, Tel:  6466 7428