Crystalline. Light, Liquid, Movement.
Fiona Shewan
1 Feb–31 May 2025
Poems of light, liquid, movement and grain.
A struggle with beginnings and endings.
Something removed from linearity. The shake of fear.
A layering of fragmented thoughts.
Ice cold landscapes, crystalline fictions, dreams that broke and something inside too.
The harmony of the sphere, erratic movement, the sound of colour.
The joy of sitting by the creek bed, love for the water caressing the rocks, bubbles bursting.
Lines that form, flow together briefly and then disappear.
Light, liquid, movement and grain (2023), super 8 film, 4.46 mins
Helgustaðanáma: back and forth (2022), video, 2.48 mins. Acknowledgements to SIM Residency Iceland
Helgustaðanáma: back in time (2022),video, 2.38 mins. Acknowledgements to SIM Residency Iceland
Calcite (2023), video, 3.10mins. Acknowledgements: SIM Residency Iceland
These three video works explore the history of geology in Reydafjördur in East Iceland and the presence of calcite deposits in the area. The region is home to an extinct volcano that was active approximately 15 million years ago. Large calcite crystals found in cavities in lava pile remnants from this volcano at Helgustadir were used to create optical devices for scientific investigation. The video works attempts to replicate the birefringent qualities of the crystal with layered visuals and destabilises the image, a hint at the fragmented nature of perception. Some footage of the site is inverted, pulling the image back to its prehistory through the negative form. The landscapes bend and warp in a fluid state, referencing the process of crystallisation whereby liquid solidifies into a crystalline lattice. From grayscale to vibrant reds and amber tones, the landscape shifts into its past fiery, fluid state.
Silfurberg, Iceland
(2022),
video, 6.57 mins.
Acknowledgements: SIM Residency Iceland.
Silfurberg is a transparent form of calcite that was mined at Helgustadir from the seventeenth century until 1924. The crystal has birefringent qualities which gave scientists insight into the process of double refraction. Super 8 footage of a darkroom focus finder is overlaid with landscape shots taken in Reykjavík. Fragments of transparent calcite, along with a magnifying glass were placed over the lens of a camera, obscuring landscapes. With focal planes confused and clarity hindered, the video plays with the confusion of sight and what it really means to see. Fleeting images jump about, rarely ever finding a stable focus point.
Cavern, (2022), video, 1.42 mins
The camera glides through a dark cavern lit by torchlight, illuminating a crystalline world of wonder.
No meaning, only a search for grace, hope, love in the midst of fear.
Could shimmer like starlight.
Hope.
Journey to the Center, (2023), super 8 film, 2.11 mins.
A super 8 travelogue, grain fluttering about like the wings of the butterfly in flight before it settles still on the branch for a moment.
Driving back and forth. A quick trip in the thick of winter. Ice cold fingers, mountain impossible to enter.
It was fiction.
Blocked from that passage.
A super 8 travelogue, grain fluttering about like the wings of the butterfly in flight before it settles still on the branch for a moment. Driving back and forth. A quick trip in the thick of winter. Ice cold fingers, mountain impossible to enter. It was fiction. Blocked from that passage.
Fiona Shewan is an emerging artist located in Narrm. She has just graduated from a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Victorian College of Arts. She has a Bachelor of Arts, Honours from Monash University where she received a Merits Scholarship. Her work has been featured in a variety of shows. She was shortlisted for the Kate Daw Scholarship and the Majlis Scholarship at the Victorian College of the Arts. She was a recipient of the Majlis Art Award.