Justene Williams
The Curtain Breathed Deeply

The Curtain Breathed Deeply is an expansive new commission by Sydney-based artist Justene Williams. The exhibition will transform the entirety of the Artspace galleries into a determinedly chaotic, immersive and inter-related sequence of installations. Her largest and most ambitious undertaking to date, The Curtain Breathed Deeply will seduce visitors into and through a spectrum of hypnotising sets and video installations abounding in sensory overload and cacophony.

In The Curtain Breathed Deeply Williams melds references from art history – Picasso, Leger and Kahlo – with a range of everyday pop cultural influences including hip hop music, Milli Vanilli and A Chorus Line. In a series of choreographed performative videos the artist blends together references drawing on rituals of Shamanism, Voodooism and Modernist primitivism. Williams amasses together a collection of visual and aural curiosities through a wealth of patterns, colours, textures and tonalities, many of which draw from the artist’s own childhood. Calling upon memories of her father’s wrecking yard, her childhood training in dance, and her experiences constructing elaborate retail window displays, Williams uses found objects and waste materials to create dazzling theatrical environments.