'If The Mountain Is Burning, Let It Burn' is an exhibition of new photographic and recent video work that draws from Nicholson’s archive of over two hundred photographs of Colombia, her birthplace—Bogotá, and her life in Australia.
Moving between analogue and digital methods, and marking Nicholson's first time working in photography, If The Mountain Is Burning, Let It Burn sees the artist re-examining and deconstructing the archive anew. The exhibition includes a series of large-scale photographs and an installation of The Deep Rivers Say it Slowly (2023), a video which formally borrows from the photographic slideshow.
Nicholson arrives at an image by employing layered analogue, digital, and cameraless technologies. In the developing process of analogue photography, the image appears slowly and can rapidly disappear again through overexposure. The varied yet rhythmic nature of her photographs and videos reflects her interest in the workings of memory. Focused on an attempt to catch the image, Nicholson has produced a photographic series that obscures and fractures the image further.
The exhibition takes its title from the song Que Se Quema El Monte [That The Mountain Is Burning] (2006) by the renowned Colombian bullerengue musician Etelvina Maldonado. Nicholson's translation is comparatively devastating and instructive and evokes the emotional resonances of the archive, rather than the search for essential truths. If The Mountain Is Burning, Let It Burn gestures towards a moment of regeneration, a state of perpetuity, and a boiling point.
About the artist
Over the past decade, Claudia Nicholson’s multidisciplinary practice has examined her relationship to the Latin America region—specifically, Colombia—in an ongoing attempt to negotiate geographical, cultural, and temporal distances. Particularly notable have been her alfombras de aserrín (sawdust carpets), silletas (wearable fresh flowers displays), and watercolour paintings.
Nicholson is a recipient of the NSW Emerging Visual Arts Fellowship (2017) and a three-time finalist of the Sir John Sulman Prize (2022, 2019, 2018). In 2022, she was commissioned by the Sydney Opera House to develop new video work 'The Deep Rivers Say It Slowly' for Shortwave Festival. In 2020 she was commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia to develop Art Trail, an art education resource for young people. In 2019 she was commissioned by Museum of Contemporary Art and Vivid Sydney to create a light up the facade of the MCA.
Recent exhibitions include Braving Time: Contemporary Art in Queer Australia, National Art School (2023); Fulgora, National Art School (2023); A Park is Not a Forest, Sydney College of the Arts Gallery (2022); Belonging, Art Gallery of New South Wales (2019); and The National: New Australian Art, Carriageworks (2017). She has held residencies with TWT Artist Studios (2019-2021) Carriageworks (2017-2019) and Firstdraft Gallery (2012-2014). Her work is held in private and public collections including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Campbelltown Art Centre, The University of NSW, and Artbank. In August, her work will be screened as part of the Art Gallery of NSW’s Projections series alongside 8mm film works by the late Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta.
Publication
If The Mountain Is Burning, Let It Burn is accompanied by an illustrated publication with new writing by Dr Verónica Tello, Dr Cherine Fahd, and Dr Lucreccia Quintanilla, and is the fourth edition of the UTS Artist in Residence publication series.
Gallery directions
UTS Gallery
Level 4, Peter Johnson Building (Building 6)
702 Harris St, Ultimo,
University of Technology, Sydney
The 2023-24 UTS Artist in Residence Program has been developed with support from academic research partners Dr Cherine Fahd and Dr Marivic Wyndham and the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Built Environment.
Banner image: Claudia Nicholson. Untitled 1 (2024). Archival Pigment Print. Courtesy the artist. © Claudia Nicholson 2024.
Related event
Exhibition Opening: If The Mountain Is Burning, Let It Burn
Tuesday 30 July
6pm - 8pm
Join us to celebrate the opening of If The Mountain Is Burning, Let It Burn, by Claudia Nicholson.
