Exhibition Dates: Friday 9 December to Thursday 9 Feburary
Location: Saltwater Community Centre
Artist Bio:
Maria Nardo @artbymarianardo is a contemporary multimedia artist who lives and works in the Point Cook, Vic area. Having completed a Masters of Primary and Secondary Teaching at Deakin University she now teaches Visual Art and hopes to continue her studies to be able to one day help young people through Art Therapy.
She has exhibited several times with other Artists in the RedWest co-op and taken part in the Wundergym program several times which saw her work featured in a publication sold at the National Gallery of Victoria as part of the Melbourne International Book Fair during Melbourne Design Week in 2022. This is Maria's first solo exhibition.
Am I Random?
In the spirit of storytelling, this series is a visual journey that expanded from just one idea. It began early in 2022 when Forward Motion for WunderGym ran in conjunction with the Science Gallery Melbourne's exhibition 'Swarm'. The exhibition focused on how we could potentially combine art and science. In the original work that started this series titled 'Am I Random?', I responded to the question – ‘What happens to us after death?’. Combining my knowledge of science, sociology and life I suggested that if humans produce energy, and the theory states that energy is never lost only transferred, then it stands to reason that we don't disappear, but our energy is just transferred. I imagined if we could create a machine that could see the energy bubbles floating around us.
If we could see this energy as colour and we had the technology to show our colour, would this be a way to find our soulmate? Would they be the same colour? Or a complementary colour? If our energy is like a bubble, is that why sometimes we feel as though our energy is absorbed by some people, repelled by others and combined with the ones we love? Do you ever feel like some people just 'pop' your energy bubble? Do you ever have the feeling of being drawn to some people and away from others? Is this random? Am I random?
From these thoughts I created this series of colourful works post-Covid to brighten and lighten the dark and sombre mood that seemed to have encapsulated the world over. These pieces, although all slightly different and evolving, all come down to the same idea, are we all just floating colourful bubbles or souls looking for someone?