Liminal Personae

20 October – 18 November 2006

Artists: Susan Norrie, Laurens Tan, Anita Larkin, John Massingham, Luis Trujillo, Jade Pegler, Joanne Handley, Iain Whittaker, Megan Sproats, Aaron Hull and May Barrie.

Loosely translating as “threshold people”, Liminal Personae is an exhibition of and about artists who challenge the stereotypes about artists living outside the metropolitan centres and who walk the fine threshold of acceptance. Most of the artists featured reside, or have had regular interaction with Wollongong and the Illawarra, and this exhibition aims to gather them all together, without them having to squeeze themselves into a theme or exhibition brief.

This exhibition celebrates the idiosyncrasies of these artists – their particular practices, ideas, concepts, materials, living arrangements, physical or mental circumstances, histories or lack thereof. The artists involved span a range of disciplines and experience: the curators have rejected the usual practice of showing work by only emerging artists, or only those who have been artists for 20 years or more.

This project was kindly supported by a cultural grant from Arts NSW, a Visual Arts and Craft Grant from the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) and through the support of the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.