david connolly

Do You See What I See?, 2023

July 13 – August 24, 2023

Opening Reception Thursday, July 13th from 6:00 – 9:00 pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Wellington Contemporary is pleased to announce Do You See What I see? by New York City based, Australian artist David Connolly exhibition. This is David's third solo exhibition with the gallery.

Do You See What I See?, 2023 exhibition includes drawings, paintings, and text based work that propose complex questions about natural resources, power structures, and the media's role in shaping our reality, images, and truths. By confronting systematic power structures, David's work challenges audiences to question historical contingencies and avoid the idealist trap of universal meanings and values.

THIRD RAIL GALLERY

Natural World, 2022.

August 18th– September 10th 2022.

Opening Reception Thursday, August 18th, 6:00 – 9:00 pm.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm.

Third Rail Gallery is excited to present Natural World by New York City based, Australian artist David Connolly. This is David's second solo exhibition with the gallery.

Natural World, 2022 exhibition includes drawings, paintings, and text based work that propose complex questions about natural resources, power structures, and the media's role in shaping our reality, images, and truths. By confronting systematic power structures, David's work challenges audiences to question historical contingencies and avoid the idealist trap of universal meanings and values.

AHES OF FLAGS, 2018.

 8' x 4' wood panels.

coal slag, carbon powder, red iron oxide

October 27th -November 18th, 2018.

SHENG XIAN CONTEMPORARY, Beijing, China, is proud to present New York based, Australian artist David Connolly’s, first solo exhibition with the gallery.

In this newest body of work, Ashes of Flags (2018) Connolly investigates themes of coal and mining, utilizing coal slag—a particle by product of electricity generation—as a primary material.

Beneath the grains, a series of meandering lines scored into the wood at varying depths evoke contour maps or topographical landscapes.

The work addresses, shifting global commodity of raw materials that are processed from earth materials to a synthetic and societies addiction to natural resources.

Ashes of Flags is on show at Wellington Contemporary, London from February 9th to  to February 24th, 2018

Oct 12th, - Oct 26th, 2017

VEER Gallery is proud to present New York based, Australian artists first solo Exhibition with the gallery.

In this newest body of work, Ashes of Flags (2018) Connolly again returns to themes of coal and mining, utilizing coal slag—a particle byproduct of electricity generation—as a primary material.

Beneath the grains, a series of meandering lines scored into the wood at varying depths evoke contour maps or topographical landscapes

Two continuous looped video and 2 channel audio installation.

technical: The viewer enters the second floor of a disused and abadoned University building in New York. You first hear rumbling construction audio before you view speakers housed within a glass-partitioned room. As you walk through the floor you encounter two projections; one of recorded footage of the floor and two of existing footage from a documentary film.

 video one: Looped recorded footage of the space projected in the S/E part of the expansive passageway, surveying and visually mapping the floor, scanning for remnants of recent occupants.

video two: Looped frame-by-frame video projected in the S/W part of the floor, adjacent to a hallway of an imploding building in Chicago Illinois, (featured in the film Koyaanisqatsi, Life out of Balance.)

content: The installation addresses political issues, surrounding the tenure of President Bob Kerrey of The New School University, in relation to the perceived consideration of fiscal policy overriding academic convention. As a result, the building was vacated suddenly to make way for new construction, only to be halted over lack of University funds.

Two looped videos, each with 2 channel audio, 2 cinema screens 4’x 8‘, 4 speakers, wood.  Exhibited at The Arnold and Sheila Aronson Gallery, New York, 2016.

technical: Two video projections projected on separate walls, play the action of a person skipping rope with occasional fields of red, blue or green color. The quality of video is like that of a surveillance camera and the audio is out of synchronization with the video. 

content: Using surveillance aesthetic that reference connection and disconnection of the body and psyche, we are increasingly becoming mediated via technology.

Photography, words

Featured in “Interdependency of You” Group Show, 2016

Exhibited at Yashar Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

satan your kingdom must come down (as sung by Willie Nelson), 2016.

graphite, water, c prin

Exhibited at, No Vacancy Gallery, 2016.

single channel video and audio projection, teleprompter.

Installation @ The Kitchen, Chelsea, NYC.

Extract, a single channel video and audio installation coupled with a teleprompter, serves to highlight the psychological aspects of several different personalities Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Security Guard, The Witness and The Accused through speech patterns and the abstraction of the body.

In this work, I perform improvised monologues composed in relation to a Zambian mining facility in 2011. However, the focus of the work alludes to details of the event itself, only in the location and roles of certain parties’ involved, not specific factual details.

wood, arrows, carbon and aqua resin.

Be Careful For What You Wish For III, 2013 questions the idea of Utopia in modernity as a result of rapid economic growth.

Suggesting a cautionary tale for both the West and East in relation to perceiving each other’s role in a global economy.

Bamboo, neon light, plaster, duct tape.

melamine rice bowls, display case, plaster chinese lions, utopia book on architecture, red silk cloth and himalayan salt.

Be Careful For What You Wish For III, 2013 questions the idea of Utopia in modernity as a result of rapid economic growth. 

Suggesting a cautionary tale for both the West and East in relation to perceiving each other’s role in a global economy.

3 channel audio loop, ¼ and ⅛ steel rods, three horn speakers. Dimensions variable. 

speakers are speaking in code, 2012 is a continuous sculptural work always built on site by the artist or /an individual or team following instructions. Plastic ties keep the form fixed, creating forms that appear ready to burst or collapse at any moment. Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one-way communication.

The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a one-time pad is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once number stations have broadcasted the encoded message, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station systems are.

Video, projection, plaster, wooden shelves.

Shoot Gallery, Sydney Australia proudly presents an Installation by international artist, David Connolly.

The installation A Fatal Shore I, addresses Australia’s handling of illegal migration or Boat People as they are commonly referred to. In the financial year of 2010/11

Australia’s border patrol intercepted 75 fishing vessels in Australian waters, often overcrowded with refugees seeking asylum from war and poverty.

Displaced persons are most likely from fishing villages, forced to incur a lifetime of financial debt from people smugglers in the hope of a better way life.

content: Nativism favour’s the interests of certain established inhabitants of an area or nation as compared to claims of newcomers or immigrants. It may also include the re-establishment or perpetuation of such individuals or their culture.

The endangered Grey Nurse Shark has a series of pigmentation spots on either side of their body. These markings are unique to each shark (just as human fingerprints are unique to each one of us). A combination of relatively late maturity and low reproductive rates means that sharks are unable to replace depleted numbers. Shark populations around the world have dramatically decreased due to various human activities.

 In Australia, seven shark species are listed as threatened, including the endangered Grey Nurse Shark. For over 70 years, shark nets have been protecting Australian swimmers from a death almost too awful to contemplate. Since their introduction in 1936, not one fatal shark attack has been recorded at beaches where nets have been installed. But a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that shark nets remove more than just feared predators from our beaches. Protected species such as whales, dolphins and manta rays also get trapped in these nets. Ironically, another protected species, the majestic but terrifying Great White Shark is regularly caught in shark nets insignificant numbers. No one really knows what removing such a high level predator from the marine foodchain will do.White sharks mostly inhabit coastal and continental shelf waters, from the shallow reaches of bays, islands and estuaries. They have been recorded over the continental slope to depths of at least 1280 metres.

 Sightings, capture records, tagging and genetic data indicate that some white sharks also spend periods in the open ocean. Tagged white sharks have travelled up to nearly 10,000 km, over periods of liberty up to 10 years. Their residency at certain places tends to be interspersed with directed (and sometimes prolonged) periods of travelling, presumably in response to the availability of prey or reproductive cues.

 Collaborators on the project include:

 eco divers...[saving the planet... one fish at a time]

><(((º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸><(((º>¸. Echo Divers, Manly, Australia

To protect, preserve and promote the marine environment and its inhabitants.

http://www.ecodivers.org.au

Spot a Shark is a non-profit dive community research project that has been established in conjunction with the Marine Ecology Group at Macquarie University. We will be utilizing a computer based software program to identify individual sharks. Each grey nurse shark has a series of pigmentation spots on either side of their body. These markings are unique to each shark (just as human fingerprints are unique to each one of us).

http://www.spotashark.com

CSIRO White shark research Team - CSIRO white shark research aims to assist the management of human interactions with this species in Australian waters, a complex challenge combining the interests of public safety, commercial and recreational fishing, tourism and conservation.

Sydney Aquarium Conservation Fund (SACF) - SACF is dedicated to conserving the marine environment by funding research and educational projects that will help protect and restore threatened species and habitats. Protecting and conserving our coasts is critical for future.

http://www.sacf.org.au

content: The last installment in the three part series, addresses the struggles of globalization on local communities that rely on large shipping ports as a the main source of employment. The industrialized seaport depicted, Port Kembla experienced major social and demographic change in the 1950s and 1960s. Waves of migrants, mostly from the United Kingdom, Italy, Macedonia and Germany, moved to the town. During this period, Port Kembla was on the cusp on changes affecting Australian society generally as new ethic and cultural influences found a place in local society.

In 2011, Bluescope Steel announced the shutdown of one of the nation's three remaining blast furnaces and the loss of at least 1000 jobs, spelling an end to Australian steel exports.

As the son of a former steel worker growing up in the community, I witnessed first hand the struggle and determination of new migrants, to forge a new life for their families in unfamiliar surroundings. Tug of War is a game that is first learnt in middle schools around the country, one that is still played today in community athletic carnivals. As a game of strength, endurance and will, it is an ideal metaphor for the global economic uncertainty and fluctuations communities face against a globalized economy. The juxtaposition of man, straining against iron clad vessels highlights, the disparity between how globalization has reduced the value of the individual to a commodity.

4' x 4' x 4'
8 Channel audio installation 8 tube lights, 8 horn speakers.

technical: 88 is a 2 channel audio installation that consists of 8 tube lights and 8 horn speakers. The work is shaped in the Chinese numerical character 8. The colour red and green are important in Chinese culture that adheres to wealth, luck and prosperity.

content: The Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional holiday festivals. In China it is known as Spring Festival a time of great migration that lasts around 40 days, beginning 15 days before Lunar New Year. It has been called the largest annual human migration in the world. Millions of workers head back to their hometowns to celebrate with their children, parents, grandparents and siblings whom they only see once a year.

People will pour out their money to buy presents, decorations, food, and clothing. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly cleanse the house, in order to sweepaway any ill fortune and to make way for good incoming luck.

The installation addresses the idea of luck in Chinese culture in the relation to the number 8, a highly prized numerical value in China. Number 88 symbolizes fortune and good luck in Chinese culture, since the word 8 sounds similar to the word Fā (发, which implies wealth, in Mandarin). The number 8 is considered to be the luckiest number in Chinese culture, and the shape of the Chinese character for 8(八) Implies that a person will have a great, wide future as the character starts narrow and gets wider toward the bottom. A series of interviews where conducted with migrant workers from the Feijician village situated on the outskirts of Beijing. Randomly chosen individuals where asked, ‘Where they are from’, how far they had to travel back to their hometown and How did they define luck’ among other questions.

Attic One: A continuous looped video (black and white, no audio)
Attic Two:  A continuous looped audio (out of synchronization with video) 

Photographs, 4 horn speakers, 4 long-range sensors, 4-channel audio and media interface, MAX/MSP and two-surveillance cameras and monitors. Exhibited at The Skybridge Sound and Art Space, New York.

technical: Entering a 60ft passageway, one sees long-range sensors and through his/her movement, sound is triggered from horn speakers. Each speaker emits a different audio channel. The channels include a man speaking about sensory limitation – not being able to see while being illegally transported over the Mexican/US boarder. Tracking or surveillance sounds like beeps are interspersed with environmental tracks of wind, gas pumps, and other related noises. The viewer’s body activates the sounds as he/she moves through the passageway.

content: The installation content is built around Jimmy Salazar’s experience while being transported in the trunk of a 1973 Chevy Malibu car or walking under darkness in the desert, often relying solely on hearing to have an understanding of his co-ordinates. 

drill drawings. 2009.

Cordless power drill, compressed graphite, pencil on paper, 12” x 14”

process: With a drill bit, graphite was applied to the paper to create a drawing of both addition and subtractive process at once. An exploration in mark-making using an intervening agency. The speed, tempo and rhythm of the drill dictated where the mark making started and finished.

 content: A mediated experience that controls your body. A machine that is an extension of ones self, exercising it’s control over you.

India ink on wall casing, Cao brush.

Mural approximately 8ft x 10ft.

process Ink is brushed on a wall using a combination of three Japanese alphabets coupled with traditional western mark-making.

content: The work is a metaphor for the rapid transformation of language and culture via transmission signals.