Listening to Cassandra

Listening to Cassandra.

Janet Clouston sculpts in cloth and wood. She paints in oils and acrylic. In her show on at The Shop Gallery, Clouston assembles a cast for the Tragedy of our times.

She tells the story of the Prophetess, Cassandra. Cursed by the jealous God Apollo, Cassandra, like women ever after, was never believed. 

Found timber and fossicked branches support towering sculptural figures, Goddesses sculpted from recycled cloth stuffed, stitched, buttoned and appliquéd. Goddesses with faces drawn in thread, expressions querulous, grievance-stricken.

A dark forest is built from timbers that the artist salvaged, washed down the flooded Hunter river after the Black Summer fires.

On the walls the paintings act as a Greek chorus, as witness. On pedestals the Great Men gaze, oblivious.