recess
Rachel Button, Leili Tehrani Walker
5–15 Mar 2025
There was once a highly sensitive pigment spot lying supine on plateau, a face stargazing in vulnerable innocence. That world was a binary of light on/ off. Soon the eye became more wary: it retreated into a deeper cleft in the face. The essence of things is easy to find. Start an autopsy from the cave of your own ear.
Leili Walker & Rachel Button's Recess embrace the chaotic, the fragmented, and the irreverent, reveling in the disorder of the internet age. Plucked from time, the cave-recess and the pixel are thrown together like odd bedfellows. The internet and the cave are timeless places, untouched and endless, magical and sinister, close to the veil of the sublime. Making work that references prehistoric futurism and futuristic prehistory, these artists, accepting that some things can never be under- stood, ‘react by asserting wild poetic logic, which belies reason.' (Killeen, 2023)
Killeen, K. (2023), The Unknowable in Early Modern Thought, Natural Philosophy and the Poetics of the Ineffable. Stanford University Press.
Leili Walker & Rachel Button's Recess embrace the chaotic, the fragmented, and the irreverent, revelling in the disorder of the internet age.
Astonished by a pilgrimage to the prehistoric painted caves of Spain and France, Button envisions the cave as a recess. A temporary suspension of time and activity. Whereas Leili recognises the internet as a portal of perpetuity.
In response to the cave - recess and the pixel are thrown together like odd bedfellows.
The internet and the cave are timeless places, untouched and endless, magical and sinister, close to the veil of the sublime. Making work that references prehistoric futurism and futuristic prehistory, these artists, accepting that some things can never be under- stood, ‘react by asserting wild poetic logic, which belies reason.' (Killeen, 2023)
This program takes place on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We recognise that sovereignty was never ceded - this land is stolen land. We pay respects to Wurundjeri Elders, past, present and emerging, to the Elders from other communities and to any other Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders who might encounter or participate in the program.
Rachel Button is a Brunswick based artist. Her art lies somewhere between a school play and a science
diorama. Since graduating from Victorian College of the Arts in 2019, she has been exhibited in galleries
across Melbourne including neon parc, the Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery, Blindside, caves ARI and
Kings ARI. She is currently in the TCB Emerging Writers Program for 2024, and is continuing to imbue an
amalgamation of painting, video work, zinemaking, writing and performance into a multifaceted visual arts
practice.
Leili Tehrani WalkerLeili (b. 1995, Sydney) is a Melbourne-based artist working across a variety of media: painting, digital and
tapestry. Their works explore themes of identity and self-hood, drawing on their personal history and cultural
background. Raised in Sydney’s Kings Cross on stories of their ancestral homeland Shiraz, Leili’s work examines
the delineation of identities. An assemblage of memory, talismans and symbols, each painting employs personal
history as a foundation for inquiry into the relationship between Self and Other.
Leili completed studies in phenomenology and pure mathematics at the University of Melbourne. They are
particularly interested in the phenomenological concept of Intentionality: by constructing alternate realities of
memory and symbol, Leili invites inquiry into this process of self-realisation and identity.
Leili’s works are primarily constructed with acrylic, gouache & sprays. In the spirit of the Saqqakhana tradition,
they combine Western stylistic traditions with the symbolism, ornamentation and geometry of Persian miniatures,
Shi’ite architecture and Islamic geometry to devise a distinct visual language. Rigid geometry is used as an
expression of the divine, whilst colour and altered perspective interrogate the oft contradictory experience of the
Self. Rather than lament these contradictions, however, Leili’s work celebrates the opportunity they create for the
imagining of alternative truths and the creation of alternative worlds. The experience of these alternate realities
invites the viewer to respond intuitively to the environment & experience self-hood through Intentionality.
As well as having exhibited at Backwoods Gallery, Tinning St Presents and Platform Arts Geelong, Leili has a keen
interest in working with stakeholders to produce community-led public art. They are currently a resident at Pink
Ember Studios, Coburg.