To think and act ecologically implies an interconnectedness, in one form or another. Donna Haraway maps the implications of such interconnectedness as 'becoming-with', such that human-nature separation is refashioned as a myriad of bodily connections. Timothy Morton prefers 'the mesh'. More concretely, the late Deborah Bird Rose emphasised instead 'embodied knots of multispecies time', which usefully gets us closer to ecological processes of decay and renewal.

Within the confines of a painting and drawing practice, the question of ‘becoming-with’ becomes not simply one of (re)presentation but of active exclusion and inclusion. Incorporating organic materials within the paintings, the traditional medium of acrylic paint is employed alongside pigments drawn from matter such as avocado skins, spices and grasses. The exhibition becoming with is conceived as an interconnected system, with each surface playing out over different material and temporal scales. How each painting transforms is not predetermined, however, but conditional, and thereby agential.

Exhibition opening:
Thursday 14 November
6 – 8pm

Jahnne Pasco-White’s expanded painting practice considers the intersections between materiality and temporality. Her work is characterised by the labouring of delicate supports. Specifically, she is interested in the layers of authorship that are variously evidenced and concealed by the artist’s mark-making, as well as their continual processes of decay and renewal. Jahnne Pasco-White is represented by Daine Singer, Melbourne.

This project is supported by the Marten Bequest and Australia Council for the Arts. The 2019 Gertrude Glasshouse exhibition program is supported by City of Yarra.