Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler
Time Machine
24 May - 1 July 2023

Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler’s Time Machine presents a recent series of paintings accompanied by a suspended sculptural installation. Inspired by patterns and textures found in the world around them, they create works reminiscent of the scarred stone surfaces of a lichen covered landscape, or a star covered night sky. These works contemplate the visual cues of temporal environmental transformation found in both the terrestrial and cosmic worlds.

The duo’s intuitive approach to mark making and form is characterised through abstraction, distortion and repetition. In a process of endurance, Bae and Lawler create a record of time and evolution through the layering, masking and compilation of materials.

For Time Machine Bae and Lawler draw on the fascinating life of lichen, its unique symbiotic relationship with our environment, and its role as a bio-indicator. Their works emphasise repetition and transformation, combining charcoal, ash, synthetic polymers to create highly textured, patterned surfaces. Bae and Lawler draw on references from the microcosmic patterns of the natural world, to create works that take on a macrocosmic state.

Wona Bae
b.1976, Muan, South Korea. Lives Naarm/ Melbourne, Australia

Charlie Lawler
b. 1980, nipaluna/ Hobart. Lives Naarm/ Melbourne, Australia

Wona Bae (South Korea) and Charlie Lawler (Australia) are collaborative artists based in Australia, known internationally for their installations and sculpture that navigate visceral and symbiotic human relationships with nature.

Their multifarious practice includes sculpture, painting, relief, sound, photography, and video. Drawing on patterns and systems from the world around them, their unique immersive installations experiment with materiality and technology, tapping into the primitive need to find connection with the natural world.

Grounded in observation and documentation of the world around them, their practice explores human experience in both natural landscapes and the built environment. Characterised through abstraction, distortion and repetition their work plays spatially with ideas relating to perspective and escapism.

Bae and Lawler have held solo exhibitions at Gujung Art Center at Onyang Folk Museum, South Korea (2022), Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (2019/20); Backwoods Gallery, Melbourne (2022 and 2019); See You Soon Gallery, Tokyo (2017); and Koskela Gallery, Sydney (2016). They were commissioned to create a major new installation for The National at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2021), and have undertaken other major installations throughout Australia, South Korea, Japan, Spain and the UK. Bae and Lawler have won the 2019 Yering Galley Award and the 2018 Yarra Valley Arts/ RACV Award, and were finalists in the Wynne Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2022). They have undertaken residencies at Artspace, Sydney (2021), Gregans Retreat, Lisdillon, Tasmania (2020), and Onyang Folk Museum, South Korea (2022).