Quite Gently

Quite Gently is a series of new artworks by Australian artist Carla Adams who works across sculpture, painting, drawing, textile and installation. For this show, she has created a series of mixed media works featuring colourful rhinestones, as well as small watercolour paintings.

“On my birthday, in 1990, a meteoroid came within 98.67km of the Earth's surface. Known as meteoroid EN131090, it grazed the Earth “quite gently”, according to scientists and had its orbit significantly altered.

The night sky is one of those slippery, liminal spaces I find myself pulled towards in my practice. It's a constant, all-encompassing presence; we use it to locate ourselves in time and space. But it’s also a mysterious, unknowable beast that is impossible to comprehend fully.

I am always looking to the heavens, finding constellations I know and since I have never seen one, I spend a lot of time desperately trying to spot a shooting star.

This new body of work continues my attempt to demystify that elusive flash of light. Shooting stars are beacons of hope, a sign of divine guidance and a chance to make a wish.

I have drawn on Romani/Traveller folk tales and oral histories about the night sky and in the absence of a fleeting glow in my own night sky, these works act as stand-ins, ready to grant wishes and serve as symbols of good fortune.

Scientists can’t accurately predict when EN131090 might fly by Earth again but I hope I’m alive when it does.”
Carla Adams

Carla Adams
Quite Gently
19 November – 15 December 2024