David Noo­nan
Only when it’s cloudless

Tar­raWar­ra Muse­um of Art presents a major new exhi­bi­tion, Only when it’s cloud­less, by one of Australia’s most suc­cess­ful con­tem­po­rary artists, David Noonan.

Haunt­ing, uncan­ny and enig­mat­ic, Only when it’s cloud­less presents pre­dom­i­nant­ly new works includ­ing a major new sculp­tur­al instal­la­tion; the artist’s first 16mm film since 2001 with a score by the acclaimed Aus­tralian musi­cian War­ren Ellis; two major new tapes­tries; and sev­er­al new col­lages on linen.

The exhi­bi­tion also includes sig­nif­i­cant loans from the Art Gallery of South Aus­tralia, Nation­al Gallery of Vic­to­ria, Art Gallery of Bal­larat, and pri­vate collections.

Curat­ed by Tar­raWar­ra Direc­tor, Vic­to­ria Lynn, in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with the artist, the exhi­bi­tion is con­ceived as a sin­gle installation.

As a col­lag­ist, Noo­nan is renowned for his imag­i­na­tive incor­po­ra­tion and recom­bi­na­tion of found imagery —rang­ing across dance, the­atre, sub-cul­tures, abstract art and every­day scenes. This is an art of jux­ta­po­si­tion, where one world can rub up against anoth­er, trig­ger­ing mem­o­ries and feel­ings with­in the viewer.

In this exhi­bi­tion Noo­nan jux­ta­pos­es fig­ures from both east­ern and west­ern the­atri­cal tra­di­tions, con­tem­po­rary per­for­mances, as well as frag­ments from pop­u­lar sub­cul­tures and social media sites. The fig­ures often appear to be caught ​‘off guard’, acci­den­tal­ly cap­tured dur­ing moments of qui­et and inti­mate intro­spec­tion. They pos­sess an uncan­ny qual­i­ty that sits some­where between being them­selves and being ​‘on dis­play’. Caught in this trans­for­ma­tion from one state to anoth­er, they appear to be ​‘out­side’ con­ven­tion­al behav­iour­al pat­terns. Archival images hov­er and drift in a lim­i­nal space.

Only when it’s cloud­less (the title of the major instal­la­tion in the exhi­bi­tion) is adapt­ed from Yoshi­da Kenko, Essays in Idle­ness: The Tsurezure­gusa of Kenko. The 14^th cen­tu­ry Japan­ese Bud­dhist monk offers the obser­va­tion that we should be more mind­ful of our present moment, and not look at the moon ​‘only when it is cloudless’.