to look each other in the eye

to look each other in the eye is the seventh annual Parramatta Artists Studios (PAS) presentation at Artspace. Featuring artists Owen Leong, Ali Tahayori and Jodie Whalen, this edition explores the compelling relationships between desire, intimacy, personal histories, and altered states of being.

Alluding to the proverb ‘the eyes are the windows to our soul’, the exhibition invites the viewer to pass through portals or membranes to look inwards (and outwards) into our internal and introspective landscapes. Through sculpture, video and photography, the artists remind us of the role of optics and positionality. Their work considers how we each see the world is distinct and able to morph, fracture or transform. To look someone in the eye is to hold them in a reciprocal exchange. Sometimes this connection is within the lens of intimacy, or power, or sometimes of both. To gaze is to see and be seen, to have oneself reflected and refracted back in an act of comfort and discomfort. Offering both moments of revelation and concealment, the works offer thresholds into the ways we see ourselves and each other.

The exhibition is curated by Sarah Rose and is part of an ongoing collaboration between Artspace and PAS that supports artists in Western Sydney. Each year the exhibition in the Ideas Platform is launched alongside the annual NSW Visual Arts Fellowship (Emerging), reflecting the creative synergies of contemporary practitioners working across New South Wales.