Jamie North - Slidings

Slidings 2017

Solo Exhibition at The Lock Up, Newcastle.

In his solo exhibition Slidings 2017, artist Jamie North uses the dark history of The Lock-Up as a back drop for the narrative of a tragic accident involving North’s great grandfather at Lysaght's steel works in 1932. This family history is fused with Newcastle’s industrial heritage, reflected in the materiality of the artwork produced for this exhibition: raw steel and the waste products of it’s manufacture - slag and scale.

There is a pervasive sense of a world at tipping point, or perhaps past the point of return in North's work. His installations are an exploration of the tension that exists between humans and nature and the inescapable cycles of corrosion, decomposition and renewal.

Jessi England Sideris - Director, The Lock Up

Slidings 2017 (installation view)

Heraclitus 2017

cement, coal ash, blast furnace slag, iron, steel, various Australian plants, including: Aphanopetalum resinosum (gum vine), Pandorea pandorana (wonga-wonga vine), Pyrrosia rupestis (rock-felt fern), Ficus rubiginosa (Port Jackson fig), Dictymia brownie (strap fern)

78cm x 47cm

Heraclitus 2017 (detail)

Ingress and Egress 2017

cement, blast furnace slag, blue metal, iron

32cm x 35cm and 50cm x 38cm

Remainder No.12 (on steel incline) 2017

cement, blast furnace slag, marble dust, steel

30cm diameter

Remainder No.10 2017

cement, blast furnace slag, marble dust, steel, Pyrrosia rupestris (rock-felt fern)

33cm diameter

Oracle Bone 2017

found steel scale, steel plate, cement, coal ash

160cm x 50cm

Rock Suspension (Newcastle) 2017

blast furnace slag, steel, various Australian plants, including: Geitonoplesium cymosum (scrambling lily), Muehlenbeckia axillaris (matted lignum), Adiantum aethiopicum (maiden-hair fern), Pyrrosia rupestis (rock-felt fern)

dimensions variable