Sarah Contos: Eye Lash Horizon

‘Eye Lash Horizon’ marks the first comprehensive survey of the concepts, media, and preoccupations that have shaped the practice of Sydney-based artist Sarah Contos over two decades. The exhibition offers a kaleidoscopic view of the human condition through four immersive installations based loosely on the brain, womb, belly, and soul. 

The exhibition features video animations, textile sculptures, collaged printed fabrics, repurposed furniture and objects, and aluminium cast forms to create dynamic spaces which contrast harmony and anarchic play. Diverse materials and methods of making challenge our expectations of the handmade and manufactured, analogue and digital technologies, and the intersection of natural and synthetic realms.

Each space features works that weave together a tapestry of images and forms linked to the artist’s enduring interest in how art history, film, fashion, and popular culture inform our collective memories. For Contos, the process of making art involves equal experiences of recognition and mystery where the porous fibres and surfaces of objects become animated capturing histories, ideas, and emotions.

‘Eye Lash Horizon’ points to ideas of proximity and limits— what we see from a distance, what we perceive up close, and the twilight space between.

Curated by Karen Hall 

This project has been supported by the UNSW Galleries New Contemporaries Fund and has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body. 

Publication and Tote

Banner Image: Sarah Contos, In the Belly of Mary Shelley, 2023. Installation view: Gertrude Contemporary. Courtesy of the artist and STATION, Naarm/ Melbourne. Photo: Christian Capurro