THRESHOLD

The theatre of alchemical change.

I cannot look at this body of work and not think of the theatre. A place where actors (sometimes recognizable, sometimes not) become characters in another realm, who undoubtedly live, breathe, speak and are full of desire. The stage is, for all intents and purposes, tangible to us. We can reach it; it is alive. However what takes place on the stage – the specific drama or comedy or dance exists on another plane.

We empathise with the struggle of these characters, we may laugh at their situation, we wonder at their actions, and we are somber when tragedy strikes. And yet we know that tragedy is concocted. So what is concocted emotion if the stage and the actors acting on that stage are indeed real? There are rare moments, few and far between, where we as observers, are offered a glimpse of the transcendent. Where the emotions and the lives of these characters become our own and the barriers between planes cease to exist.

Moments that give us flight and simultaneously keep us grounded. In this body of work, there is an extraordinary achievement, not in the viewer’s transcendence (for it would be remiss of me to assume what others may experience) but in Schultz’s concocting the moments of her characters desire to transcend the moment wherein their humanity keeps them grounded against all the forces urging their ascent. The moment for which we are all fundamentally ill-equipped. “There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Brett Steel, 2015

THRESHOLD will open on Wednesday 18th March at 5:30pm, all artworks will be available to view online from 19 March.