Nic Brown
Nic Brown writes about Sue Ninham in Neoterica 2024.
(OCEAN)
I’m in the middle of it all.
A tiny, linear mark
Along its vast surface.
On the horizon line,
My body floats as
I propel through the waves,
Above those dark, gliding shapes that
Move silently between the water-strata.
I’m halfway nowhere,
In this murky deep,
Gesturing towards an edge –
That vanishing point I never find.
Until, I meet the headland,
Where phthalo-blue washes into white froth –
And I turn around, again.
(SKY)
I roll towards the sky
To get things in perspective.
But it’s flat; that great cerulean swathe,
With blobs of grey, drifting, like me.
I look too close to the sun.
My vision becomes a blur of cadmium orange,
And fluro-pink specks are
Stencilled across my eyes.
(SPACE)
So, I inhale.
And, like always, the world tilts,
Hurtling me to the other side –
Into space and its forever-inky stillness,
With infinite glowing constellations
And cosmic clouds of dust.
I’m weightless, again.
My paintings live here,
In this emptiness.
Invisible, they orbit my body
So that I feel their presence.
And, eventually,
When brush meets medium meets paper,
I finally see them jostling on the surface.
But then he leaves, unexpectedly.
And I’m displaced.
Spinning –
Too disoriented this time.
I fall hard like a meteoroid;
The gravity of it pulling me back.
Past the planets, the stars,
Burning through dark matter
Until I hit the middle, again.
(SEAFLOOR)
I inhale saltwater and sink.
From warmth to freezing cold,
My limbs scrape rock and slippery bits.
I descend from twilight to midnight,
The aphotic pressure pushing me into this strangeness –
Forced to rest; to sleep,
My soft body makes an in-human impression
On the sandpaper bed.
(ICE-LAND)
I wake to titanium-whiteness
And no horizon.
The pain feels like ice-needles in my skin,
Disappearing him.
It’s a blizzard,
And I’m float-walking to the studio,
Both carried and pummeled
By wind and snow.
Inside, I can still smell the salty sea.
And as the storm dissolves
Into this endless daylight,
Decrepit, black beings emerge.
Birthed by volcano – from the underspace.
They comfort me,
As I don my apron and stand at the table.
I hover over the blank sheet
And wait –
They choose neon green today.
Nic Brown is Collections Curator at Flinders University Museum of Art. She has curated award-winning exhibitions including Bee-stung lips: Barbara Hanrahan and Ray Harris: Ritual Nature, 2021. She co-curated Tjina Nurna-ka, Pmarra Nurna-kanha, Itla Itla Nurna-kanha: Our Family, Our Country, Our Legacy, 2019 in collaboration with Iltja Ntjarra Art Centre, and was curatorial manager for Patrick Pound: thinking through things, 2016 and Crystal Palace, 2013. She also curated Divinity, Death and Nature, 2010, Cynthia Schwertsik: UTE-ilitarian, 2019 and Gail Hocking | PERIPHERAL DISTURBANCE, 2018. Brown was editor-in-chief for the anthology Speak to me: conversations with the Flinders University art collections, 2016 and has published on 20th and 21st century Australian art in Imprint, Art Collector, fine print and numerous exhibition catalogues. She has held sessional academic positions at Adelaide Central School of Art and Flinders University, and was a 2014 Award Holder at the British School of Rome. Brown is a member of the Print Council of Australia’s Governing Committee.