Greg Semu Exhibition on at SCAF in Sydney

Auckland-born curator and independent indigenous researcher Greg Semu is the featured artist in an exhibition on at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) in Sydney.

“Collection+: Greg Semu” is a major exhibition which contextualises works spanning the last two decades of Semu’s practice within the broader picture of collection building.

According to curator Mark Feary, artistic director of Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne, the exhibition is presented with a cloak of wallpaper depicting the personal notes, working drawings, sketches and reference points that inform the artist’s cognitive process and provides insight into the creative methodology of developing and producing the work.

“It also draws on and extracts elements from the Tyrrell Collection, a significant photographic collection of ethnographic works held within a public research-based institution, the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney,” Feary explains.

Semu talked with BLOUIN ARTINFO about the exhibition, which is on until 10 December.

The site asked Semu what were the main sources of inspiration for the works.

“Religion, politics, historical colonial relationships and the auto documentary permeate and punctuate this curated clustering,” Semu said. “A visual diary of a personal evolution. The pain of persecution, real or imagined and place within the context of self and world.

“In my current evolution I feel I am a story teller. Interested in the narrative of the dispossessed and demoralised, community and the culture of the underdog, I contribute what I can in defusing these stories.”

Earlier this year, Semu’s exhibition “The Raft of the Tagata Pasifika (People of the Pacific)” was shown at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Semu was born in 1971.

Original article by Nicholas Forrest, BLOUIN ARTINFO, October 31, 2016.

Photo by Musée Quai Branly and Greg Semu.