The exhibition catalogue can be downloaded here - it contains important essays on the exhibtion by Dr Jenni Sorkin and Dr Vivian Ziherl

Jemima Wyman is a palawa woman who was born in Sydney and grew up in the Isaac and Mackay regions. As a high-profile practicing artist, living and working between Meanjin / Brisbane and Los Angeles, USA, Wyman is one of Mackay’s best known artists, having exhibited widely in Australia and internationally since 1998. 

 ‘Crisis Patterns’ focuses on work from 2016-present highlighting the artist’s ongoing documentation of symbols and visual patterns that appear in protest movements. Starting as hand-cut collages, each photograph is drawn from Wyman’s self-titled MAS archive; a collection of digital images from protest movements around the world, that she has been compiling since 2008. Often including hundreds of image references, each artwork meticulously documents the protest event, date and location in its full artwork title; ensuring these aesthetically intriguing compilations are more than their beautiful surfaces–they are real-time snapshots of complex social-historical events happening around the globe.

 Wyman is particularly interested in the way protesters use protective body coverings including masks, paint, smoke and textile collectively, like a make-shift billboard to communicate their message. This idea echoes throughout the exhibition space; from the  earliest dated work —Propaganda Patchwork  2016—a collaboration with her mother and homage in this Mackay context, to her creative upbringing and strong female influences—to her most recent series Cloud Conscience  2023-24, a collection of ten tessellating photo and watercolor collages (studies for ceiling papers) that draw attention to the artist’s shifting interest in smoke as an intentional means of protest camouflage.

 Overall, ‘Crisis Patterns’ reveals Wyman’s layered practice as intentionally ever-shifting. Her design-based work is presented and re-presented across varied surfaces and in varied forms, symbolic of the evolving social movements that are at the crux of her aesthetic investigations. The artist defines this form of presentation as ‘surface patterns’, repeating and creating images across paper, textile and wall coverings, each iteration a new experience.  

 Wyman’s art serves as both visual narrative and social documentation; speaking to past, present and future social issues. Through beguiling, colour-filled and hypnotising imagery, it encourages reflection about current global concerns and importantly, asks the viewer to contemplate how past events serve as a forewarning for our future.

All installation photo credits are Jim Cullen and artwork detail documentation Ed Mumford