Much of the installation is idiosyncratic and, as in the artist statement, “personal”. The inclusion of bricks (albeit with photographic images on them) is visually OK but I’m not sure what they might mean, if indeed they have meaning beyond the artist? This is where it fails for me. In electing to use a visual language whose components might hold particular meaning to himself, McGrath perhaps deliberately subverts or at least obfuscates possibilities for other meanings to be opened to his viewers. The scattered elements of the installation remain just that for me – a sort of visual expletive with an initial impact and nothing after that. McGrath’s “personal” did not translate to this member of his audience. Mikhaila Jurkiewicz, Alice, 2017, large format inkjet print In Seen&Heard Mikhaila Jurkiewicz presents 13 inkjet print portraits “focusing on women, trans, nonbinary and gender diverse people who are doing interesting and creative things in Australia”. The sitters work in the visual arts, music and writing.

The black-and-white photographs are beautifully made, finely tuned and crisply articulated. Another component of the exhibition, but one not necessary in the aesthetic appreciation of the photographs, is the eponymous publication. This includes the photographs in the exhibition with each accompanied by an extended interview with the sitters. Mikhaila Jurkiewicz, Trish, 2017, large format inkjet print,. The protagonists in the photographs sit in what are presumably their (mostly) domestic environments. Each faces the viewer in a manner that is not confrontational but rather open and inviting of dialogue. The accoutrements of domesticity (both internal and external) give an added dimension of the personal to each of the images. The directness that characterises the protagonists is underscored by the artist’s technical acuity.

The decision to use a black-and-white palette works extremely well. This strengthens the documentary, narrative quality that elides with the essentially objective stance of the genesis and thesis of the entire Seen&Heard project. Light and shade are also beautifully exploited throughout this fine exhibition. The eight silver gelatine fibre prints and two video loops in Boreal are the result of Tessa Rex’s “residency in the remote, sub-arctic town of Dakota City in Canada”. The prints hold a powerful beauty that speaks of the source of their imagery as much as it does of the sophisticated aesthetic of the artist. Given the subject-matter – snow-covered, human-less landscapes – a comparison with the landscapes of the 18th-19th-century Sublime is inevitable. Briefly the Sublime averred the grandeur of Nature, with man in awe of that grandeur and power. It was also about dealing with the unknown, the terrible aspects of Nature over which man has no control. The idea of a “terrible beauty” was part and parcel of this philosophical way of dealing with the natural world through the language of the visual arts and in particular painting. Rex’s Sublime however is a contemporary and as such is tempered with climate change and global warming. These had a profound effect on the artist and the community of Dawson City.

The catalogue tells us that 2018 was “the third consecutive year that an ice bridge has failed to form across the river (the Yukon River), severing the community. In addition, since 2006 permafrost around the city has been melting at an accelerating rate”. Tessa Rex, Yukon River, 2019, silver gelatine fibre print. This sort of event and data is unfortunately all too commonplace. They remain something about which constant reminders are a necessity. Rex’s images do this in an especially beautiful and embracing way. Her images use a minimalist aesthetic allowing the “black-and-whiteness” of the landscape to assume documentary precedence while simultaneously intimating a sense of immanent loss, a haunting pointer to a very real possibility. The latter qualities come from the artist’s thinking eye and are beautifully configured throughout the exhibition. The two video loops are displayed very differently.